Spain's Mercadona supermarket chain is able to offer the lowest prices in the country while out performing comparable Spanish and foreign chains. In 2008, Mercadona's sales per square foot was 60% higher than that of France's giant Carrefour, and more than twice that of an average U.S. supermarket. The key is a relentless focus on continuous product and process improvement. And that, reports Harvard Business School, requires treating employees and customers differently than most retailers.

The first step in applying lean tools in an office is to understand the flow of work by mapping the process. An estimated 75 to 90 percent of the steps in service and administrative processes add no value. The short article suggests what data to gather for mapping and cites some results. (Quality Digest)

Q&A with John Toussaint, MD, and Roger Gerard, PhD
authors of On the Mend: Revolutionizing Healthcare to Save Lives and Transform the Industry

Q: Lean originated in manufacturing; how does it apply to healthcare?
Like lean manufacturing, lean healthcare strives to increase value to patients by taking the waste out of processes and improving quality. Nationwide, there is a growing emphasis on continuous quality improvement, cost reduction, and increased patient value — the same type of principles originally applied in manufacturing.

Manufacturers that have diligently and thoroughly applied lean thinking have reaped steady productivity gains while reducing errors and improving the customer and employee experience. Imagine the results that similar improvements could bring in healthcare.

Read the rest of the Q&A with authors John Toussaint and Roger Gerard.

Whether you are fixing a manufacturing or office value stream, lean is “about the creation of a problem solving and fast-learning culture,” said Jim Luckman, a faculty member at the nonprofit Lean Enterprise Institute.  Luckman who has been a manufacturing plant manager, an R&D center manager, and head of a small startup company, recently discussed how to apply value-stream mapping in nonmanufacturing value streams with Business901 podcast host Joe Dager. One of the workshops Luckman teaches for LEI is on Value-Stream Mapping for the Office and Service

Many managers who are new to value-stream mapping don’t use it properly. They make two big mistakes — they collect too much data that is more precise than needed, according to LEI faculty member Drew Locher.