A3 EXAMPLES: STANDARDS, STANDARD WORK, & VISUAL MANAGEMENT

These materials are from Jeffrey K. Liker and the book, Developing Lean Leaders at All Levels.

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A3 REPORT TO CREATE A PURCHASING CARD

This example illustrates that Lean doesn't apply only to manufacturing problems. This happens to be an actual report that was used for training purposes in the Toyota Technical Training Centre in Ann Arbour. 

In this case employees were trying to get approval for a purchasing credit card that they could use to buy items costing less than $500. In order to put this into perspective; when you're dealing with the launch of a new product, a proposal might involve a new plant and it might be several billion dollars in scope. Then you have every employee asking if they can buy a stapler for a few dollars.

The stapler would require the same approval process as the several-hundred-million-dollar piece of equipment. Toyota leaders, who were Japanese at the time, wanted to tightly control cost. They stuck to their budgets carefully unless there was a good reason to deviate, and they expected a well-thought-through plan, starting with identifying the actual problem. 

The actual problem shows that the majority of purchases are small and they take up most of the time. These requests for purchasing tie up staff time; they tie up purchasing time; and an employee feels they should be able to go out and buy a stapler if it is needed.

 It was necessary to specify how the credit card would be implemented; what specific controls would be put in place so an employee couldn’t use the card to go out and have lunch or go to a bar. 

Then there was a timeline for implementation and implementation of this purchasing card was very well received and it satisfied the people watching the budget managers.

A3 PROBLEM-SOLVING STORY

Another type of A3 involves safety and the problem of reducing injuries; this is another manufacturing example. This case is a hybrid between a proposal story and a problem-solving story. 

This manufacturing plant was stamping steel parts and there were many hand injuries, mainly cuts when handling sharp sheet metal. The kinds of problems were documented and it was necessary to show how many hours of production were lost due to injury; the target goal was to be reducing the hand injury frequency by 90% over the next 12 months. 

That's pretty ambitious. When they did their five why's, the final why led to motivation of employees. 

So often we say the final why should not be a who, blaming somebody, but in this case they were not blaming an individual for being lazy, but they were saying there was no motivation that was reinforced and built in to the system for employees to follow basic safety practices that they were already aware of. 

 So they needed to clarify the problem for employees and make clear what employees should be doing. There was a suggestion to incentivize with a cash prize and then have an implementation plan; they haven't gone so far as to implement this suggestion, but they indicate how they would verify that it worked. 

They are ending with a proposal, and then they would have to show the status story of how they're doing the implementation as they get closer to the 90% target.

This was a motivational example, and they still solve this partly through offering some sort of cash prize. 

This is a good opportunity to discuss the idea of spread everywhere. This case was done in a manufacturing plant. I happen to know this case and it was in the Detroit area, and it was in a culture where employees are used to the idea that doing something positive should be rewarded with money. 

Money was a currency for motivation. 

In Toyota plants, they usually try to avoid giving out money. They might give awards for departments that have particularly good safety records and there might be gold and silver awards given to the two best departments. Winners are allowed to select items from different tables. Leaders try to avoid developing a culture in which an employee won't do the right thing unless they receive money.

In this particular culture, they held a raffle, so employees were not getting paid every time they did something in the interest of safety, but at least there was a raffle with a significant award. This happened to make sense in their culture.

CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

TRUE NORTH

It's summary, continuous improvement means that improvement is continuous. It's not a one-shot solution that you implement.

David Meier, my co-author of The Toyota Way Field Book, sent me this diagram around the time that we were finishing up the book.

He said to me, Jeff we have to include this diagram some place because this is the way  I learned continuous improvement from my Sensei at Toyota.

Whad the Sensei did was draw a stair step, and then he drew a stick figure of a person and he said to Dave,  Dave-san, are now here, and you can only see this far into the future.

So you need to come up with a Kaizen (an improvement) every day, and as you do that you'll start climbing these stair steps. At each step, you're going to see a broader horizon. You're going to see problems that were not invisible when you were at the bottom. 

Every day you move a little up; some days it will be a big up. But what he was emphasizing to David was, Don't wait until you get inspired for the perfect solution. Until you take the first step, it will not be possible to take the next. 

This approach encompasses a philosophy of problem-solving¾a philosophy that says; I need to know the direction I want to go.

I need to have that true north; I need to have an explicit target that I'm right now aiming toward; and then I need to be comfortable accepting that I don't know how to get to that target. 

I don't have a map; nobody has drawn the map. I don't have a GPS system. I've got to figure it out, and the way I'm going to figure it out is one step at a time. 

That gives you a feeling of uncertainty that many people are uncomfortable with. They want the plan; they want to know that this is going to work before they start the journey. 

But with real creative problem-solving you never know the future; you never know if it's going to work. You never know whether it will be sustained even if it works.

So that's why you need drive and dedication. That's why you need continuous improvement and not one-time improvement that you walk away from.

This concept is the essence of Lean. Unfortunately, we've gotten duped into thinking the essence of Lean is implementing Lean solutions that we see in Toyota plants; and those solutions happen to be their countermeasures today for their problems which are going to change.

There will always be problems. There's tens of thousands too many problems to work on--maybe millions--too many to work on. So you've got to prioritize what you’ll work on, develop a target that's meaningful, get consensus, get a team, but take responsibility for leading the effort and take a step; reflect; take another step; reflect; PDCA, PDCA, PDCA; that is really the essence of Lean.

The other cheering on that David got was always, David-san, do your best and just try something and I will support you.

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