Integration of A3 into the DMAIC framework

By leansixsigma • on March 10, 2008

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photo credit: Craig Axxie

Although it’s easy to focus on other things at certain times of the year, for example, it appears that even Santa uses Six Sigma to help him meet his toy related delivery objectives, despite what the naysayers may have you believe. So last week, my mind wandered to the use of A3. A3 – what the heck is that?

Well, it not a trunk road in Southern England, connecting London to Portsmouth neither is it a motorway in Switzerland. It is in fact a problem solving report developed as part of the Toyota Production System which is written/sketched on an A3 piece of paper (A3 being a paper size defined by ISO 216).

Is it feasible to integrate the DMAIC framework with the A3 problem solving methodology. In essence A3 uses the Plan-Do-Check-Act approach as follows

  1. Theme & Background, including problem statement
  2. Current Condition (process map)
  3. Root Cause Analysis
  4. Target Condition
  5. Implementation Plan
  6. Follow-up Plan
  7. Results Report

However, overlaying the DMAIC framework gives us:

DEFINE:

  1. Theme & Background, including problem statement

MEASURE:

  1. Current Condition (process map)

ANALYZE:

  1. Root Cause Analysis

IMPROVE:

  1. Target Condition
  2. Implementation Plan

CONTROL:

  1. Follow-up Plan
  2. Results Report

I believe that this gives you a much more powerful approach than merely A3 alone. You can now use the DMAIC tools in the correct context and most appropriate stage. It also allows you to overcome some of the limitations which have been leveled at the DMAIC approach.More information on A3 can be found here and here.

What do you think? Can the approaches be integrated or are they dealing with different types of improvement: continual and breakthrough? Post a comment below.

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Comments

By Nick Hebb on December 19th, 2006 at 12:48 pm

Apparently you’re not the only one interested in A3 and DMAIC. A couple of weeks ago I published some free flowchart templates for Excel – including a DMAIC block diagram sized for A3 paper.

So tonight I’m checking my logs to see how much traffic the templates generated, and noticed a lot of the referrals were searches for A3 and DMAIC.

That seemed strange to me. The templates come in A3, A4, letter, and tabloid (11×17). Why would people only be searching for A3?

So I searched around and stumbled upon this post. I’d never heard of the A3 report before, but after reading this piece and reading my referral logs I have to think that a lot of people think of them in the same vein.

By Nick Hebb on December 19th, 2006 at 7:48 am

Apparently you're not the only one interested in A3 and DMAIC. A couple of weeks ago I published some free flowchart templates for Excel – including a DMAIC block diagram sized for A3 paper.

So tonight I'm checking my logs to see how much traffic the templates generated, and noticed a lot of the referrals were searches for A3 and DMAIC.

That seemed strange to me. The templates come in A3, A4, letter, and tabloid (11×17). Why would people only be searching for A3?

So I searched around and stumbled upon this post. I'd never heard of the A3 report before, but after reading this piece and reading my referral logs I have to think that a lot of people think of them in the same vein.

By Omid on July 8th, 2008 at 1:49 pm

You have a rich blog , thanks

By Omid on July 8th, 2008 at 8:49 am

You have a rich blog , thanks

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