A PDF of the A3 template provided in the book Managing to Learn.

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 link below contains an audio interview with John Toussaint, MD, co-author of the LEI book "On the Mend: Revolutionizing Healthcare to Save Lives and Transform the Industry."

The first Q&A:

Q I realize that it's a few months off yet, and you probably haven't finalized your remarks, but what are some of the challenges that you intend to address in your keynote speech in Baltimore? Some of the messages you're taking with you?

A I think that this is about leadership behavior. The tools are the tools, the tools are important, you've got to learn the tools, but you can learn the tools. The hard part is the people part. What does a lean leader look like? That's what I'll be focussing on, what it takes to be an effective lean leader. It means, pretty much, that you have to change everything that you've learned in business school, or medical school, or nursing school, and you have to pretty much retool yourself, because our existing education system is turning out autocratic control freaks who manage by the numbers, and they don't know anything about quality improvement, and they don't know how to manage a group of people to actually achieve 100% reliable results. If we don't change ourselves as leaders, we will never be able to transform our companies.

When Toyota moved production of mid-sized Tacomas to its San Antonio plant, the facility used the lean principle of heijunka or leveling to integrate production with the full-size Tundra. In a departure from Toyota's traditional practice of building more than one model in a facility, the plant had been dedicated to Tundras. Heijunka means the plant will alternate production of the half-ton Tundra and the smaller Tacoma one right after the other, rather using than the traditional automotive practice of building a big batch of one, then a big batch of the other. (San Antonio Express News)

Learn how Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) is striving to be the "best at getting better".

Research on the success or failure of kaizen events supported by the National Science Foundation at Oregon State University and Virginia Tech looked at nine different organizations to identify event factors most critical to short-term and long-term performance improvement. Among the findings reporter here: for events intended to rapidly implement improvements, small scope and pre-planning might be preferred. Meanwhile, for events meant primarily for training employees in lean concepts and tools, a larger scope might be better. (Reliable Plant)

Read a report from the researchers here: http://www.iienet2.org/uploadedFiles/IIE/Technical_Resources/Conference_Proceedings/Annual/528.pdf

Auto supplier Nexteer Automotive has adapted motion analysis software used by athletes to improve processes as part of its lean manufacturing effort.the three components the software relies on for success—time, motion, and quality—are relevant to the plant floor. Applications include placing a camera into a cutting machine and slowing down the footage to ensure the machine makes the right motion every time or making sure machine operators are using the same walk path for efficiency. (Quality Digest)