Purpose -Implementation of lean manufacturing is currently performed in the production industry, however for the airline maintenance service industry it is still in its infancy. Indicators such as work in process, cycle time, on time performance and inventory are useful indicators to measure lean implementation, however a financial economic perspective taking fixed assets in consideration is still missing. Hence the purpose of this paper is to propose a method to measure lean implementation from a fixed asset perspective for this type of industry. With the indicators, continuous improvement scenarios are explored by value stream discrete event simulation. 2Practical implication -The Lean Transaction Cost Efficiency Model provides the capability for a maintenance service company to simulate the effects of process improvements on operations performance for service based companies prior to implementation.Social implication -Simulation of a Greenfield process can involve employees with possible changes in processes. This approach supports the adoption of anticipated changes.Originality/value -The found indicators form a preliminary model, which contributes to the usage and linkage of theories on lean manufacturing and transaction cost theory -asset specificity.