

A3 - Toyota’s way of solving problems and creating plans - RiderOfGiraffes
http://www.slideshare.net/mgrtbx/a3-1946262

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RiderOfGiraffes
I've seen this "A3" referenced, and I'm trying to find out more about it. It
seems that all the information is nebulous and points to this one book, but
there are some hints on what it's about.

Here's another link.

[http://www.improvementandinnovation.com/features/articles/a3...](http://www.improvementandinnovation.com/features/articles/a3-reporting-
tool-drives-toyota)

If you have more information about this, please share.

Thanks.

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tcskeptic
I work for a company that models their a3 process on the Toyota process.
Essentially the A3 is used as a structured method of problem definition,
requirment planning, and solution implementation tracking within the business.
A3 originally refers to the size of paper that the analysis was performed on.
A pretty basic and typical outline of an A3 process can be found here
(<http://www.coe.montana.edu/IE/faculty/sobek/A3/steps.htm> ). To my
understanding, originally the A3 process was done with paper and pencil, and
the A3 updated as conditions or understanding of the problem changed. The size
of the paper (16.5" × 23.4") allowed for a fairly deep analysis of the
problem. A3s can be used for anything from analysis of a single failure, all
the way up to planning at the business level, with cascading A3s below being
referenced by higher level a3s to drive specific actions all the way to the
implementation level.

In practice the deep analysis of an A3 tends to be squeezed onto a single
powerpoint slide (which makes Mr. Tufte cry) and much of the problem solving
and communicative power of the A3 is lost.

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chaostheory
accidentally upvoted... I don't see much about A3 given this link

