Lean Skipper
Cap. Système. Maîtrise.
The 20-point checklist
Recreational boatbuilders
In the marine industry, almost nobody trains team leads in shop-floor management. I do it in your yard, over 90 days, with no CAPEX: I train your front-line leaders on the job, coach them on the floor, then leave you an operating system to run the shop.
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Five in each area: control, people, flow and routines. The checklist fits on two pages: print it and mark it up as you walk the shop. Count the "yes" answers and you'll know right away where you stand, without booking a meeting.
Your checklist is ready. Print it and take it with you on a walk around the shop.
Open the PDF Want a score instead of a list? The six-question diagnostic takes three minutes.Rather have a number on where you stand? The 6-question diagnostic takes three minutes and gives you a score right away.
Lean Skipper is the brand under which Tiago Mance works as an interim manager who industrializes recreational boatyards. In 90 days and without CAPEX, he writes down the know-how of each trade (composites, carpentry, marine electrical, mechanical), gets the assembly flow back on takt and trains the front-line leaders. He works alone, uses AI and OS Lean Skipper, his boatbuilding operating system, and produces the deliverables himself on the shop floor. The legal entity is Lean Skipper, a French single-member limited company (EURL), trading as Lean Skipper Formation et Conseil. Tiago Mance also runs Hybdor Marine Power Train, the electric and hybrid marine propulsion brand of Espadarte Indústria e Comércio, in Brazil: in his own plant, he applies what he sets up for his clients.
"My best laminator is retiring. My carpenter just had a baby. The mechanic is out sick. The electrician just quit. And I can't find anyone." What I hear in meetings, rolled into one voice
The first instinct is to hire, but the problem is somewhere else: the know-how sits with a few people, nothing is written down, and nobody runs the shop floor.
Two or three people hold all the know-how. When one of them is out, output drops.
My laminator went to work for the competition. We lost three months of output.
There's no standard and no work instruction, and the remaining work isn't visible anywhere. Every boat gets built from memory, and new hires learn by watching.
He's leaving in two years, and I have nobody to take over.
The team lead spends the day troubleshooting instead of running the team. Output depends on who shows up in the morning.
Every morning I redo the schedule based on who showed up.
Shop-floor management can be learned. But there's very little training or coaching for it in manufacturing, and almost none in the marine industry. The methods are well known. What's missing is someone to come in and set them up with your front-line leaders.
The answer
"Invest before you get organized and you're just automating waste." Tiago Mance, founder of Lean Skipper
I take charge of production alongside your teams, until the system runs without me, and without you.
Before speeding anything up, I assess the yard and put numbers on the delivery targets.
Goal: stop managing by guesswork and work to targets you can measure.
I install OS Lean Skipper, an operating system built for recreational boatbuilding. It covers people, processes and the technology that's actually useful.
Goal: nobody waits for parts or instructions anymore.
In this phase I work on the shop floor with your builders, until your front-line leaders run the routine on their own.
Goal: output holds when someone leaves.
What changes: a new hire can work a station on their own in a few weeks instead of years. Turnover stops wrecking your output, and you run production instead of renegotiating it every morning.
It's an operating system built from the ground up for recreational boatyards, with no generic ERP underneath. I'm Tiago Mance, and I run it alone, with AI agents.
A consulting firm bills for audit days and leaves behind a report that describes a method. Then somebody has to apply it. In a yard with a full backlog, nobody has time for that: the two or three people who know how are already tied up in production.
I work as a "high individual contributor": I show up alone and produce the deliverables myself instead of coordinating a team. The OS holds the project plan, the standards being written and the remaining work at each station. The agents take care of the repetitive work, like formatting the process sheets or tracking gaps from one walk through the shop to the next. AI does the office work; I stay on the shop floor and still make the calls.
I call it Service as a Software: the yard pays for a result and has no software to maintain. By Day 90, the standards, the remaining-work list and the routines are yours, and they run without me. A 90-day project with hands-on coaching, starting at €2,450 excluding VAT, with no CAPEX.
A demo mock-up shows the OS up close: the operators' ticket board, the phone view, the stockroom and what the system works out on its own.
See the OS demoIf this isn't for you, it's better to know right now.
A client boatbuilder first, then six public recommendations. Originals in English are quoted word for word.
"Thanks to your input, we'll have now a few 'To-Dos', looking forward to seeing them turn into reality. Our Managing Director liked your results and suggestions."
Alexander Busher, Lean Manager, HanseYachts AG
Industrial maturity assessment and kaizen event at both sites, with Daniel Kuhn, Head of Industrial Engineering. HanseYachts describes itself as the world's second-largest sailboat builder.
"Tiago has very strong Lean Manufacturing skills and is particularly good at passing on and explaining Lean concepts and tools. He shows real teaching skill and pragmatism, which makes it easier for teams to understand them and make them their own. His ability to connect Lean principles to the concrete problems of the shop floor is a real asset."Nicolas De OliveiraProduction Manager, Republic Technologies France
"I was lucky enough to work with Tiago on Lean Management training when I was HR Director at Righini. Beyond his expertise, I particularly appreciated his curiosity, his sharp understanding of business issues and his ability to open up new perspectives."Lauriane GonzalezHR Director at Righini at the time
"Garante cada projeto seja único e não apenas uma lista de tarefas a serem cumpridas, mas uma jornada estruturada rumo ao sucesso. Você é uma referência para mim."
He makes sure every project is unique, and not just a list of tasks to get done but a structured path toward success. You are a role model to me.
Leandro Küster WolffNational Director of Continuous Improvement and Training, Castel Groupe Angola"Aprendi muito com o Tiago quando trabalhei com ele na implantação do lean manufacturing em um estaleiro de lanchas de grande porte. Tiago é um profundo conhecedor de todas as ferramentas da gestão industrial estratégica para maximizar a produtividade e reduzir as perdas."
I learned a lot from Tiago when I worked with him implementing lean manufacturing at a builder of large motor yachts. Tiago has deep knowledge of all the tools of strategic industrial management for maximizing productivity and reducing waste.
André Felipe Gomes de AndradeMaintenance, Production and Engineering Manager, TPM and Lean Manufacturing; reported to Tiago"Beyond already being a great professional in recreational boatbuilding, Tiago brings his unique human qualities of enthusiasm, integrity, adaptability and confidence in the future, which allow him to lead difficult change projects with a sensitivity and a way with people that let him bring teams along toward ambitious challenges."Loïc GélébartConsultant
"Tiago is a very competent person, it was a pleasure to work with him on the same project. His lean culture and analytical mind are fascinating. Beyond his hard skills, he is an inspiring leader with very good interpersonal skills who knows how to lead a project team to achieve ambitious objectives."
Houssam ElamriProduction Director, Smurfit Westrock; reported to Tiago
Recommendations published on Tiago Mance's LinkedIn profile. The three written in French are my translation.
It takes three minutes, and your score shows up right away, before anyone asks you for anything. Then you can get the score and the first step by email, with a link to book 45 minutes if you want to talk it over.
Question 1 of 6
0/ 100
Your email app has opened with your result: score, four areas, first step. Send it to yourself so you have it handy. The booking link is in the email, and it's also right here.
Book 45 minutes
I wrote the method down so it can work without me. The first chapter is free to read: where the LAPIS method comes from, what a pencil did during the space race, and the foundations of the protocol. The full book comes with a practice tool, the GPS LAPIS, and its demo is open to everyone.
I work like a boutique firm: every engagement is priced for your yard, and the proposal commits to a return on investment. To give you an idea:
A 90-day project with hands-on coaching starts at €2,450 excluding VAT.
The final price depends on the size of the yard and the number of areas. The twenty-point checklist and the six-question diagnostic are free, and you don't need a meeting for either.
An interim manager takes operational responsibility for production for a set period, in this case 90 days. They make the decisions, work on the shop floor and answer for the results. Where a consultant hands over a report, an interim manager leaves a yard that runs. At your yard, that's me, Tiago Mance.
During the engagement you don't buy any machines, buildings or heavy software. Capacity comes from flow: written-down know-how, boatside kitting, takt time, the ILUO matrix, cutting out wait time. You get back capacity you're already paying for and losing to walking around, hunting for parts and rework.
Running production generates data every day: remaining work, missing parts, disruptions, skills. My AI agents keep it up to date and prepare the morning's decisions in OS Lean Skipper, my boatbuilding operating system. The time I save, I spend on the shop floor. You have no software to buy or administer. What gets done in person doesn't change: Gemba walks, coaching your front-line leaders, decisions made in front of the management team.
A standard only sticks if someone keeps it alive every day. That's what the Mastery phase, from Day 60 to Day 90, is for: I coach your front-line leaders on the shop floor until they run the routine without me.
OS Lean Skipper starts from the task, described in ten dimensions, rather than from the boat. Takt time paces the assembly, whatever the model. A yard building one-offs has the same waiting, the same missing parts and the same dependence on its key people as a production yard.
I run Hybdor Marine Power Train, my own marine propulsion brand, built by Espadarte in Brazil. What I put in place at your yard, I run in my own plant. And I have a direct stake in your yard growing, because it's my market too.
Invest before you get organized and you're just automating waste. Let's measure your real capacity first. If you still need the machine after that, you'll buy it for the right reasons, and it won't sit idle.
Yes. I work in Europe and the Americas, in French, English and Portuguese, and in Spanish and Italian with assistance. My recent engagements include a boatbuilder in Germany and Poland.
Every week I write up one bottleneck I saw on a shop floor, what we did about it and how it turned out. I leave out the theory and the sales pitch.
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For each station, what the OS, the leader and I each do. Keep scrolling: the boat gets built from gelcoat to delivery.
Station 01 of 10
Gelcoat
Set your course
The checklist takes ten minutes to read and only asks for an email address. The diagnostic takes three minutes and gives you a score. The meeting comes later, if you want one. And if you'd rather write first, a LinkedIn message is enough: tell me where things are stuck, and I'll tell you straight whether I can help.
Scroll: the boat gets built station by station
Two yards I'm not naming. For each one: what they asked for, what I did, the lever we found, and what made the change stick after I left.
Yard A
What the client took away: a short list of actions to carry out, approved by top management along with the recommendations.
Yard B
What the client took away: every boat leaves with a real remaining-work list that goes to the harbor with it, and the boats leave in better shape; the supervisor is more at ease and can see what needs doing.
An Ironman is a full-distance triathlon: a 2.4-mile swim, a 112-mile bike ride and a 26.2-mile run, back to back on the same day. Finishing one takes a long-term view and discipline, so I train in short, frequent sessions, even on the days I don't feel like it.
You hit a launch date the same way. At the morning huddle, in front of the board, the team lead sees who's in and which parts are missing, then chases them down before a station has to stop. The huddle is short, and it's the first thing you're tempted to skip when you're running behind.
Every race has a rough patch. I get through it on the work I put in beforehand. Some mornings, the shop floor hits a rough patch too: the key person is out and the schedule falls apart. Output holds if the standard is written down and the huddle has been running for weeks. I set up that huddle with your front-line leaders, out on the floor, and stay with them until they run it without me.
I'd rather tell you myself than leave you guessing. My focus is creating real value on the shop floor, with the people who do the work. A website doesn't create any for my clients: no boat gets launched any sooner because my page looks good. So I automate that kind of work with AI as much as I can.
When someone sends you a chart made in Excel, you can tell by the default colors and formatting. We've all gotten used to it, and nobody minds anymore: we just check that the numbers are right. I think it will be the same with AI. We can still spot its fingerprints on a piece of writing or an image, and before long we'll stop noticing.
AI remains a very powerful tool, but it doesn't replace human experience. It can't coach a team lead at their station or announce a change to the builders. You need a human in the loop, on site, someone who knows the shop and makes the calls. I run my business practically on my own, and thanks to AI I can still spend quality time with each client and create value with them.
Before you go: the 20-point checklist only asks for your email address.
Send it to me