The Cleveland Plain Dealer talks with GrafTech International Chairman and CEO Craig Shular about the lean journey at the global maker of graphite industrial products and about Shular's participation in a recent kaizen event.

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.

Instead of requiring patients to move from department to department to receive their care, a process typical in most cancer centers, the team created the "non-moving patient" care model. In the new Frauenshuh Cancer Center at Park Nicollet, patients remain in their own comfortable room with views of a healing garden, while caregivers come to them. Services rendered in the patient's room include: lab draws, nursing assessment, physician exam, IV therapy administration and the scheduling of future appointments.

A BBC story on looming competition to Boeing's venerable 737 gives a summary of the plane's moving assembly line, patterned on lean principles. The line is a sharp departure from the traditional aircraft manufacturing methods of working on parked planes individually. The line moves at five centimeters per minute.

A Bloomberg story on the rivalry between Boeing and the European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. for a military tanker contract, outlines the benefits of  Boeing's switch to a lean-inspired moving production line. Production of Boeing's 767 will use a moving assembly. Previously, the company used cranes to move the aircraft to new stations as each step was completed. Boeing already uses a moving line for its 737.