room should have seen it and agreed to it. At Toyota it is common to have just
five minutes to present the report before a decision is immediately made.
Historically, the A3 was taught by the supervisor, but not in a classroom. It
was part of the craft of being a Toyota professional. In the United States, Toyota
discovered that American managers lacked some basic management skills
taken for granted at Toyota, including A3 report writing, so a special class was
designed to teach all managers. It started out as a one-day course and then was
reduced to a half-day course. As the course was developed, it became clear there
were prerequisites as in a college course. A prerequisite course on practical
problem solving was needed.
Many companies who learn about A3 report writing find it seductive. We’re
all overwhelmed by the amount of paperwork in our company—whether it’s
physical paper or virtual reporting on the computer. One side of one sheet of
paper is awfully appealing. Unfortunately, the seductive appeal of the report is
also its chief weakness. It’s easy to treat an A3 like a nice new toy. It becomes a
dictate from management to use them. Everyone learns how and spends a lot of
time outdoing each other to create fancy graphic creations, cramming more and
more information on the page. This is not the point. The point is to communi-
cate, gain consensus, solve problems, and get results.
388 THETOYOTAWAYFIELDBOOK
Reflection Activities
If you’ve been completing the reflection section of Chapters 14-17,
you will have completed your problem-solving activity. The A3 can
be used as a format and guide during your activity, and as a sum-
mary report after the problem is solved. The following questions
are specifically aimed at a post-problem-solving report, but could
also be used to organize your ideas and information as the problem
is being solved. Use the problem you completed in Chapters 14-17
and your information to complete the following tasks.- Starting with a blank sheet of paper, complete the heading of
the A3 report. Include:
a. Your name
b. The theme of the problem (describe the objective of solving
the problem)
c. The name of the work area, department, facility, etc.
d. The date of the report - Complete the problem situation section.
a. Depict the problem graphically.
b. Show the effect of the problem on other important business
conditions.