Hands-on approach                     

Kingma & Partners Consultancy uses the Lean A3 method. This is a well thought out plan for a hands-on approach, that fits on a single A3 page only. Why just one page? Well, if a lot of text is needed to describe the problem and solution, we believe that the problem hasn’t been analysed thoroughly enough. The solutions then cannot be defined specific enough to lead to the required results. The A3 method comes from Toyota, where it was used to share problems and solutions amongst various Toyota factories. The A3 was the largest piece of paper that would fit in a fax machine. Faxes are hardly used nowadays. However, the essence of this method, clear and short formulations of problems, is still used as a solving method at Toyota. 

Actually, this method is applied worldwide in all kinds of industries. The main reason for its success is a number of standard steps. Followed by an improvement team, they lead to a thorough analysis of a problem until its roots are determined. Only when this root cause is eliminated, the problem can actually be solved. Simply entering actions, of which you feel that they will solve the problem, will rarely succeed. They are not understood by those involved. By following the A3 steps described below, everyone will understand why a problem is a problem, what caused it and what must be done to solve it. Only when all those involved realize this, the desired improvement will succeed.

The A3 steps are:

Background

Why are we doing this anyway? Why is it necessary for the company? Why is this important for the employee? What would happen if we do nothing? We start by answering such questions. This helps us to clarify what commonly motivates the team to want the desired improvements. If a team does not agree on this, the following steps will be harder and harder to get support, and future improvements actions will not be understood.

Current Situation Mapping

We often discover that the various departments are not sufficiently informed about each other’s process, tasks and problems. That’s why we at this stage we want to clarify the initial situation to everyone. We do so by step by step analysing the companies’ process of manufacturing a product or order. This creates understanding for others and other departments, which is the basis for a successful introduction of improvements at a later stage. We visualize the process, also called Value Stream Mapping in Lean. Skipping this step leads to many employees that do not understand why certain actions are deployed later on.

Objectives/Goals

We now formulate our objectives in terms of performance with the team. For example: a decrease of 50% in the number of customer complaints within 6 months. Targets need to be measurable in order to lead to improvements. By discussing this in the team and writing it down, everyone realizes the impact of the current way of working on the results of the company. In addition, the common goal is clear for everyone.

Problem Analysis

During the Problem Analysis, we try to find out what really causes a problem. What basic situation has led to –for example- the number of customer complaints being 50% too high? Only when finding the root cause, we can take action to remove it and thus solve the problem.

Ideal situation

What would the ideal working situation be like if there were no limitations? We organize a brainstorm about the ideal situation to really free the team from current limitations. Quite often these brainstorms lead to ideas that are initially considered not feasible. However later they turn out to be feasible indeed and may lead to considerably improved business results.

Albert Einstein once said: "If you do what you always did, you will get what you always got." Therefore it is important to ‘loosen’ the improvement team from the current situation.

Future situation

At this point we, together with the team, select a working method that will lead to improvement in the short term. This is often based on ideas derived from the ideal situation. To keep it practical, the  new process or method is visualized by a Value Stream Map.

Action plan

Starting at the future situation, together with the team, an action plan is formulated to achieve this. By appointing a responsible person and a deadline for each action to be taken, the plan is made specific. The action plan is divided into short term, medium term and long term actions. Subsequently, the plan is evaluated on a daily or weekly basis to maintain the improvement speed.

Follow up

The team then determines how it will measure improvements and secure them. This is to prevent a downturn in the achieved improvements, or to ensure that further improvements are deployed as well. Furthermore the open issues are described here.

Taking the lead

Someone will be appointed to take the lead in actually implementing the action points. This person evaluates the progress with the team, on a regular basis. Whenever needed, the leader makes adjustments in the plan. Often this role is initially undertaken by the consultant, but later taken over by someone within the organization (of course we can support there).

For more information, please contact: Freerk Kingma