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How to use Toyota’s legendary A3 problem-solving technique

Georgina Guthrie

February 21, 2020

If you came home one day and found your kitchen taps on full-blast and your house full of water, what’s the first thing you’d do? Grab a bucket and start scooping — or turn off the tap?

When it comes to problem-solving, many of us take a rushed, reactionary approach rather than fixing the issue at the source. So in other words, we see the water, panic, and start scooping. If this sounds like something you’ve done recently, then don’t feel too bad: when the pressure’s high, we often jump towards the quickest fix, as opposed to the most effective one.

This is where the A3 technique comes in. It’s a problem-solving approach designed to efficiently address the root cause of issues.

What is the A3 technique?

The A3 technique is a structured way to solve problems. It’s part of the Lean methodology , developed by Toyota back in the mid-’40s. This doesn’t mean you need to implement a Lean way of working to take advantage of this process — it can work as a standalone exercise.

Granted, A3 isn’t an inspiring name, but the story of its origins is actually pretty interesting. Rumour has it that Taiichi Ohno, inventor of the Toyota Production System, refused to read past the first page of any report. In response, his team created A3 address and summarize problem-solving on one side of A3-sized paper. The A3 technique played a huge part in Toyota’s success and all kinds of industries have since adopted it. Here’s how to get started.

How to solve a problem with A3

The first thing to remember is this: A3 is collaborative and relies on good communication. It’s not something you should do by yourself.

There are three main roles involved:

Owner (that’s you or someone under your charge)

As you’ve probably guessed, these aren’t roles that already exist in your company; you must create them for the purpose of this process. Here’s what they mean.

The owner is responsible for leading the exercise. They are the lynchpin between the two other roles, fostering good communication and keeping documents up to date. It’s tempting to think of the owner as the head of this trio, but that’s not true: everyone is equal here.

The mentor is someone with solid problem-solving experience. It’s their job to coach the owner and steer them towards finding a solution. It’s not their job to find the answers themselves.

And finally, there are the responders . This is someone (or a group of people) who have a vested interest in the outcome of the A3 project. Responders might include the client, stakeholders, or managers. A potential problem here is gaining access to them: if you work somewhere with a strict hierarchy — and you’re somewhere near the bottom of that structure — you may face challenges. There’s no easy way around this. Essentially, you need your organization to support this way of working and make it easy for you to access those at the top if needed.

How to create an A3 report

True to its origins, the A3 report is a one-page document. It typically contains 5-7 sections that systematically lead you towards a solution. These are the most commonly used steps, but feel free to modify them.

Background: Explain your project in a few sentences, including its context.
Problem statement: Explain the current problem. You can use process mapping to see the different tasks that surround the issue. This isn’t essential, but it will make it easier for you to locate the root cause.
Goals: Define your desired outcome, and include metrics for measuring success. You won’t know everything until you reach the end, so you may find you need to come back and refine stages 1-3.
Root cause analysis: This is a big stage of the process. You need to work out what you think the root problem is. You can use different methods to help you here, including 5 whys or a fault tree analysis .
Countermeasures: Once you’ve worked out your root cause, you can start proposing solutions.
Implementation: Work out how you’ll implement these solutions, including an action list with clearly defined roles and responsibilities. Project management software is a useful tool here because it can help everyone on the team track each other’s progress in real-time.
Follow-up: Using your metrics for success, decide whether the problem was solved. Report your results back to the team/organization. In the spirit of Lean (continuous improvement), you should go back and modify your plan if the results weren’t as expected. And if they were, you should make this process the new standard.

Final thoughts

A3 is an efficient, methodical way to solve problems at their source. When issues rear their head, rising stress can lead people to panic. Having a clearly designed system in place to guide you towards a solution minimizes the chances of people settling for a ‘quick fix’ or failing to act altogether.

Beyond being a guiding light in times of pressure, A3 is a great team-building exercise because it encourages individuals to work together towards a common goal — across all areas of the organization. Combine this with collaborative tools designed to help teams track progress and work together more effectively, and you’ll be unstoppable.

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Toyota’s Secret: The A3 Report

How Toyota solves problems, creates plans, and gets new things done while developing an organization of thinking problem-solvers.

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While much has been written about Toyota Motor Corp.’s production system, little has captured the way the company manages people to achieve operational learning. At Toyota, there exists a way to solve problems that generates knowledge and helps people doing the work learn how to learn. Company managers use a tool called the A3 (named after the international paper size on which it fits) as a key tactic in sharing a deeper method of thinking that lies at the heart of Toyota’s sustained success.

A3s are deceptively simple. An A3 is composed of a sequence of boxes (seven in the example) arrayed in a template. Inside the boxes the A3’s “author” attempts, in the following order, to: (1) establish the business context and importance of a specific problem or issue; (2) describe the current conditions of the problem; (3) identify the desired outcome; (4) analyze the situation to establish causality; (5) propose countermeasures; (6) prescribe an action plan for getting it done; and (7) map out the follow-up process.

The leading question

Toyota has designed a two-page mechanism for attacking problems. What can we learn from it?

The A3’s constraints (just 2 pages) and its structure (specific categories, ordered in steps, adding up to a “story”) are the keys to the A3’s power.
Though the A3 process can be used effectively both to solve problems and to plan initiatives, its greatest payoff may be how it fosters learning. It presents ideal opportunities for mentoring.
It becomes a basis for collaboration.

However, A3 reports — and more importantly the underlying thinking — play more than a purely practical role; they also embody a more critical core strength of a lean company. A3s serve as mechanisms for managers to mentor others in root-cause analysis and scientific thinking, while also aligning the interests of individuals and departments throughout the organization by encouraging productive dialogue and helping people learn from one another. A3 management is a system based on building structured opportunities for people to learn in the manner that comes most naturally to them: through experience, by learning from mistakes and through plan-based trial and error.

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About the Author

John Shook is an industrial anthropologist and senior advisor to the Lean Enterprise Institute, where he works with companies and individuals to help them understand and implement lean production. He is author of Managing to Learn: Using the A3 Management Process to Solve Problems, Gain Agreement, Mentor, and Lead (Lean Enterprise Institute), and coauthor of Learning to See (Lean Enterprise Institute). He worked with Toyota for 10 years, helping it transfer its production, engineering and management systems from Japan to its overseas affiliates and suppliers.

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Comments (22)

Sheila colinlak, patrick doyle, acta de constitución de proyecto ágil, un elemento diferenciador. | agilia, dave whaley, william harrod, howard s weinberg, systemental, khucxuanthinh.

How Toyota Turns Workers Into Problem Solvers

Sarah Jane Johnston: Why study Toyota? With all the books and articles on Toyota, lean manufacturing, just-in-time, kanban systems, quality systems, etc. that came out in the 1980s and 90s, hasn't the topic been exhausted?

Steven Spear: Well, this has been a much-researched area. When Kent Bowen and I first did a literature search, we found nearly 3,000 articles and books had been published on some of the topics you just mentioned.

However, there was an apparent discrepancy. There had been this wide, long-standing recognition of Toyota as the premier automobile manufacturer in terms of the unmatched combination of high quality, low cost, short lead-time and flexible production. And Toyota's operating system—the Toyota Production System—had been widely credited for Toyota's sustained leadership in manufacturing performance. Furthermore, Toyota had been remarkably open in letting outsiders study its operations. The American Big Three and many other auto companies had done major benchmarking studies, and they and other companies had tried to implement their own forms of the Toyota Production System. There is the Ford Production System, the Chrysler Operating System, and General Motors went so far as to establish a joint venture with Toyota called NUMMI, approximately fifteen years ago.

However, despite Toyota's openness and the genuinely honest efforts by other companies over many years to emulate Toyota, no one had yet matched Toyota in terms of having simultaneously high-quality, low-cost, short lead-time, flexible production over time and broadly based across the system.

It was from observations such as these that Kent and I started to form the impression that despite all the attention that had already been paid to Toyota, something critical was being missed. Therefore, we approached people at Toyota to ask what they did that others might have missed.

Q: What did they say?

A: To paraphrase one of our contacts, he said, "It's not that we don't want to tell you what TPS is, it's that we can't. We don't have adequate words for it. But, we can show you what TPS is."

Over about a four-year period, they showed us how work was actually done in practice in dozens of plants. Kent and I went to Toyota plants and those of suppliers here in the U.S. and in Japan and directly watched literally hundreds of people in a wide variety of roles, functional specialties, and hierarchical levels. I personally was in the field for at least 180 working days during that time and even spent one week at a non-Toyota plant doing assembly work and spent another five months as part of a Toyota team that was trying to teach TPS at a first-tier supplier in Kentucky.

Q: What did you discover?

A: We concluded that Toyota has come up with a powerful, broadly applicable answer to a fundamental managerial problem. The products we consume and the services we use are typically not the result of a single person's effort. Rather, they come to us through the collective effort of many people each doing a small part of the larger whole. To a certain extent, this is because of the advantages of specialization that Adam Smith identified in pin manufacturing as long ago as 1776 in The Wealth of Nations . However, it goes beyond the economies of scale that accrue to the specialist, such as skill and equipment focus, setup minimization, etc.

The products and services characteristic of our modern economy are far too complex for any one person to understand how they work. It is cognitively overwhelming. Therefore, organizations must have some mechanism for decomposing the whole system into sub-system and component parts, each "cognitively" small or simple enough for individual people to do meaningful work. However, decomposing the complex whole into simpler parts is only part of the challenge. The decomposition must occur in concert with complimentary mechanisms that reintegrate the parts into a meaningful, harmonious whole.

This common yet nevertheless challenging problem is obviously evident when we talk about the design of complex technical devices. Automobiles have tens of thousands of mechanical and electronic parts. Software has millions and millions of lines of code. Each system can require scores if not hundreds of person-work-years to be designed. No one person can be responsible for the design of a whole system. No one is either smart enough or long-lived enough to do the design work single handedly.

Furthermore, we observe that technical systems are tested repeatedly in prototype forms before being released. Why? Because designers know that no matter how good their initial efforts, they will miss the mark on the first try. There will be something about the design of the overall system structure or architecture, the interfaces that connect components, or the individual components themselves that need redesign. In other words, to some extent the first try will be wrong, and the organization designing a complex system needs to design, test, and improve the system in a way that allows iterative congruence to an acceptable outcome.

The same set of conditions that affect groups of people engaged in collaborative product design affect groups of people engaged in the collaborative production and delivery of goods and services. As with complex technical systems, there would be cognitive overload for one person to design, test-in-use, and improve the work systems of factories, hotels, hospitals, or agencies as reflected in (a) the structure of who gets what good, service, or information from whom, (b) the coordinative connections among people so that they can express reliably what they need to do their work and learn what others need from them, and (c) the individual work activities that create intermediate products, services, and information. In essence then, the people who work in an organization that produces something are simultaneously engaged in collaborative production and delivery and are also engaged in a collaborative process of self-reflective design, "prototype testing," and improvement of their own work systems amidst changes in market needs, products, technical processes, and so forth.

It is our conclusion that Toyota has developed a set of principles, Rules-in-Use we've called them, that allow organizations to engage in this (self-reflective) design, testing, and improvement so that (nearly) everyone can contribute at or near his or her potential, and when the parts come together the whole is much, much greater than the sum of the parts.

Q: What are these rules?

A: We've seen that consistently—across functional roles, products, processes (assembly, equipment maintenance and repair, materials logistics, training, system redesign, administration, etc.), and hierarchical levels (from shop floor to plant manager and above) that in TPS managed organizations the design of nearly all work activities, connections among people, and pathways of connected activities over which products, services, and information take form are specified-in-their-design, tested-with-their-every-use, and improved close in time, place, and person to the occurrence of every problem .

Q: That sounds pretty rigorous.

A: It is, but consider what the Toyota people are attempting to accomplish. They are saying before you (or you all) do work, make clear what you expect to happen (by specifying the design), each time you do work, see that what you expected has actually occurred (by testing with each use), and when there is a difference between what had actually happened and what was predicted, solve problems while the information is still fresh.

Q: That reminds me of what my high school lab science teacher required.

A: Exactly! This is a system designed for broad based, frequent, rapid, low-cost learning. The "Rules" imply a belief that we may not get the right solution (to work system design) on the first try, but that if we design everything we do as a bona fide experiment, we can more rapidly converge, iteratively, and at lower cost, on the right answer, and, in the process, learn a heck of lot more about the system we are operating.

Q: You say in your article that the Toyota system involves a rigorous and methodical problem-solving approach that is made part of everyone's work and is done under the guidance of a teacher. How difficult would it be for companies to develop their own program based on the Toyota model?

A: Your question cuts right to a critical issue. We discussed earlier the basic problem that for complex systems, responsibility for design, testing, and improvement must be distributed broadly. We've observed that Toyota, its best suppliers, and other companies that have learned well from Toyota can confidently distribute a tremendous amount of responsibility to the people who actually do the work, from the most senior, expeirenced member of the organization to the most junior. This is accomplished because of the tremendous emphasis on teaching everyone how to be a skillful problem solver.

Q: How do they do this?

A: They do this by teaching people to solve problems by solving problems. For instance, in our paper we describe a team at a Toyota supplier, Aisin. The team members, when they were first hired, were inexperienced with at best an average high school education. In the first phase of their employment, the hurdle was merely learning how to do the routine work for which they were responsible. Soon thereafter though, they learned how to immediately identify problems that occurred as they did their work. Then they learned how to do sophisticated root-cause analysis to find the underlying conditions that created the symptoms that they had experienced. Then they regularly practiced developing counter-measures—changes in work, tool, product, or process design—that would remove the underlying root causes.

Q: Sounds impressive.

A: Yes, but frustrating. They complained that when they started, they were "blissful in their ignorance." But after this sustained development, they could now see problems, root down to their probable cause, design solutions, but the team members couldn't actually implement these solutions. Therefore, as a final round, the team members received training in various technical crafts—one became a licensed electrician, another a machinist, another learned some carpentry skills.

Q: Was this unique?

A: Absolutely not. We saw the similar approach repeated elsewhere. At Taiheiyo, another supplier, team members made sophisticated improvements in robotic welding equipment that reduced cost, increased quality, and won recognition with an award from the Ministry of Environment. At NHK (Nippon Spring) another team conducted a series of experiments that increased quality, productivity, and efficiency in a seat production line.

Q: What is the role of the manager in this process?

A: Your question about the role of the manager gets right to the heart of the difficulty of managing this way. For many people, it requires a profound shift in mind-set in terms of how the manager envisions his or her role. For the team at Aisin to become so skilled as problem solvers, they had to be led through their training by a capable team leader and group leader. The team leader and group leader were capable of teaching these skills in a directed, learn-by-doing fashion, because they too were consistently trained in a similar fashion by their immediate senior. We found that in the best TPS-managed plants, there was a pathway of learning and teaching that cascaded from the most senior levels to the most junior. In effect, the needs of people directly touching the work determined the assistance, problem solving, and training activities of those more senior. This is a sharp contrast, in fact a near inversion, in terms of who works for whom when compared with the more traditional, centralized command and control system characterized by a downward diffusion of work orders and an upward reporting of work status.

Q: And if you are hiring a manager to help run this system, what are the attributes of the ideal candidate?

A: We observed that the best managers in these TPS managed organizations, and the managers in organizations that seem to adopt the Rules-in-Use approach most rapidly are humble but also self-confident enough to be great learners and terrific teachers. Furthermore, they are willing to subscribe to a consistent set of values.

Q: How do you mean?

A: Again, it is what is implied in the guideline of specifying every design, testing with every use, and improving close in time, place, and person to the occurrence of every problem. If we do this consistently, we are saying through our action that when people come to work, they are entitled to expect that they will succeed in doing something of value for another person. If they don't succeed, they are entitled to know immediately that they have not. And when they have not succeeded, they have the right to expect that they will be involved in creating a solution that makes success more likely on the next try. People who cannot subscribe to these ideas—neither in their words nor in their actions—are not likely to manage effectively in this system.

Q: That sounds somewhat high-minded and esoteric.

A: I agree with you that it strikes the ear as sounding high principled but perhaps not practical. However, I'm fundamentally an empiricist, so I have to go back to what we have observed. In organizations in which managers really live by these Rules, either in the Toyota system or at sites that have successfully transformed themselves, there is a palpable, positive difference in the attitude of people that is coupled with exceptional performance along critical business measures such as quality, cost, safety, and cycle time.

Q: Have any other research projects evolved from your findings?

A: We titled the results of our initial research "Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System." Kent and I are reasonably confident that the Rules-in-Use about which we have written are a successful decoding. Now, we are trying to "replicate the DNA" at a variety of sites. We want to know where and when these Rules create great value, and where they do, how they can be implemented most effectively.

Since we are empiricists, we are conducting experiments through our field research. We are part of a fairly ambitious effort at Alcoa to develop and deploy the Alcoa Business System, ABS. This is a fusion of Alcoa's long standing value system, which has helped make Alcoa the safest employer in the country, with the Rules in Use. That effort has been going on for a number of years, first with the enthusiastic support of Alcoa's former CEO, Paul O'Neill, now Secretary of the Treasury (not your typical retirement, eh?) and now with the backing of Alain Belda, the company's current head. There have been some really inspirational early results in places as disparate as Hernando, Mississippi and Poces de Caldas, Brazil and with processes as disparate as smelting, extrusion, die design, and finance.

We also started creating pilot sites in the health care industry. We started our work with a "learning unit" at Deaconess-Glover Hospital in Needham, not far from campus. We've got a series of case studies that captures some of the learnings from that effort. More recently, we've established pilot sites at Presbyterian and South Side Hospitals, both part of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. This work is part of a larger, comprehensive effort being made under the auspices of the Pittsburgh Regional Healthcare Initiative, with broad community support, with cooperation from the Centers for Disease Control, and with backing from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Also, we've been testing these ideas with our students: Kent in the first year Technology and Operations Management class for which he is course head, me in a second year elective called Running and Growing the Small Company, and both of us in an Executive Education course in which we participate called Building Competitive Advantage Through Operations.

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An A3 Report is a Toyota-pioneered practice of getting the problem, the analysis, the corrective actions, and the action plan down on a single sheet of large (A3) paper, often with the use of graphics. At Toyota, A3 reports have evolved into a standard method for summarizing problem-solving exercises, status reports, and planning exercises like value-stream mapping.

But it is much more than a sheet a paper with facts and figures. It is a management process learned through dialogue about concrete problems. It does this by means of a dialogue between a lean manager and a subordinate who learns lean management and leadership as she solves an important problem.

This process of solving problems while creating better employees—A3 analysis—is core to the Toyota management system. An A3 report guides the dialogue and analysis. It identifies the current situation, the nature of the issue, the range of possible counter- measures, the best countermeasure, the means (who will do what when) to put it into practice, and the evidence that the issue has actually been addressed.

The lean leader’s job is to develop people. If the worker hasn’t learned, the teacher hasn’t taught. Training Within Industry Report (Washington, DC: War Manpower Commission, Bureau of Training, 1945).

Effective use of the A3 process can facilitate the shift from a debate about who owns what (an authority-focused debate) to a dialogue around what is the right thing to do (a responsibility-focused conversation). This shift has a radical impact on the way decisions are made. Individuals earn the authority to take action through the manner in which they frame the issue. They form consensus and get decisions made by focusing relentlessly on indisputable facts that they and their peers derive from the gemba.

As a result, A3 management can best be understood as neither “top-down” nor “bottom-up.” The process clarifies responsibility by placing ownership squarely on the shoulders of the author-owner of the A3, the individual whose initials appear in the upper right-hand corner of the paper. This person may not have direct authority over every aspect of the proposal. Yet this owner is clearly identified as the person who has taken or accepted responsibility to get decisions made and implemented .

Example A3s

Complete A3 about solving an administrative problem in translation.

The Many Facets of A3

A standard paper size: At its most fundamental, “A3” is the international term for a sheet of paper 297 millimeters wide and 420 millimeters long. The closest U.S. paper size is the 11-by-17-inch tabloid sheet.
A template: Many companies and individuals use an A3-sized document pre-printed with the steps needed to conduct lean problem-solving or improvement efforts, with generous white space for “A3 owners” to record their progress. While they refer to this document as a template, an “A3” is not a template.
A storyboard: As users record their problem-solving or improvement project’s progress, the A3 becomes a storyboard used to facilitate communication, collaboration, and coordination with other stakeholders affected by the goal the A3 owner is working toward (e.g., solving a problem or improving a process ). By having all the facts about the effort in one place, logically presented and summarized, the A3 owner is better able to gain buy-in from other stakeholders for recommended process changes.
A report: Once the A3 problem-solving effort concludes, the A3 storyboard serves as a report of the problem-solving or improvement initiative, including the facts and data gathered, hypotheses considered, countermeasures tried, experiment results, corrective actions taken, and the overall thinking of the A3 owner and stakeholders. At Toyota and elsewhere, A3 reports have evolved into a standard method for summarizing problem-solving exercises, status reports, and planning exercises like value-stream mapping.
A problem-solving methodology (or process): Most lean practitioners know “the A3” as a problem-solving process guided by specific steps or questions. The left side of the A3 focuses on various elements of the problem or current condition, and the right on the countermeasures considered, tested, and chosen that resolves the issue or creates a higher standard.
A management discipline (or process): At a higher level, lean leaders, managers, and supervisors use “the A3” as a means by which they oversee and guide subordinates while simultaneously helping them develop their lean thinking and practice — particularly lean leadership and problem-solving — capabilities. With A3 management, leaders challenge their direct reports to solve a problem. Then, with the A3 report guiding the dialogue and analysis, leaders coach them through the problem-solving process. Importantly, leaders coach by asking questions versus providing answers, ensuring responsibility remains with the subordinate to solve the problem by pursuing facts and building consensus. Through this interaction, subordinates address the issue, allowing them to make progress toward the objective and, in so doing, learn the lean approach to leadership and management and gain problem-solving capability.
A3 thinking (or analysis): Most A3 coaches and advanced lean practitioners refer to “the A3” as a thinking process. In this case, the term refers to a systematic approach to resolving problems or improving work processes. Someone can follow this systematic approach, regardless of whether they are guided by or record their findings on an A3 document.
An alignment tool: Advanced lean organizations that have incorporated lean thinking and practices throughout their operations use “A3s” as part of their strategy deployment and execution efforts. In this case, the A3 process ensures a standard approach to managing and coaching people, all directed toward solving problems that help achieve corporate objectives.

A large yellow block inviting you to download an eBook about A3.

Additional Resources

How Do I Start My A3?

When asked “where do I start to write my A3,” David Verble responds “don’t start by writing.” His piece, the first in a series about getting started, offers lessons he has learned about the nature of thinking, and a productive way to start the A3 by recognzing it as a thinking process.

Zoomed-in A3 with red circles and arrows.

Don’t Present Your A3: Share Your A3

Related Books

Managing to Learn: Using the A3 management process

Related Online Courses

Intro to Problem Solving

Problem-solving is critical to every position in every industry. In this course, you will learn to grasp the situation at the gemba (where the work is done) and use all of your senses to understand what is truly happening.

See: Value Stream Mapping

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Toyota’s A3 and Root Cause Analysis

by JJ Sutherland | Sep 24, 2015 | Blog | 0 comments

This coming Wednesday, Scrum Inc.’s online course will dive deep into Toyota's legendary problem solving tool the A3 . Most people have heard of root cause analysis , but less have heard about the A3.

A3? Isn’t that a piece of paper?

So what’s so special about a piece of paper, and what’s all this A3 nonsense? (A3 is the International Organization of Standards denotation for an 11x17, or tabloid, piece of paper. The A3 is the largest standard paper size in Toyota.)

To quote Jim Womack, the author of the famous book on the Toyota Production System , ‘The Machine that Changed the World’:

The most basic definition of an A3 would be a Plan Do Check Act (P-D-C-A) storyboard or report, reflecting Toyota's way of capturing the process on one sheet of paper. But the broader notion of the A3 as a process embodying a mindset that captures the heart of lean management. In this context, an A3 document structures effective and efficient dialogue that fosters understanding followed by the opportunity for deep agreement.

PDWhat? PDCA is the process, popularized by management legend W. Edwards Deming, that teaches quality improvement. In fact Deming later changed PDCA to PDSA, the S meaning study, as he felt you should spend more time studying your results. Here’s how it works:

P lan: identify what can be improved and propose measures and a plan
D o: implement the plan
C heck/Study: measure and analyze the results
A ct: based on the results
Repeat the process multiple times to continuously improve

Deming based his work on that of his mentor Walter Shewhart, he always called it the Shewhart Cycle. Others later referred to it as the Deming Cycle, and it was Deming who taught the PDCA process to Toyota. (Shewhart developed the process based on Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum , which was the beginning of the scientific method.)

The Toyota A3 report teaches you how to apply this process in performing effective and deep problem solving . However, simply knowing what PDCA stands for is not enough. If you truly want to solve problems so they never occur again, you need to develop your A3 skills.

But why an A3? There are a number of anecdotes on how Toyota settled on the A3. The one I like most recounts that Taiichi Ohno , the creator of the famed Toyota Production System, was well known for not reading any further than the first page of a report. This may be one of the reasons the A3 was born. A big enough piece of paper to capture the entire problem analysis and recommendations on one page, so sensei Ohno would read it.

However the A3 was born, it has become the most important tool for teaching PDCA. Creating an A3 is a deep learning approach in truly understanding problem solving and continuous improvement, and our monthly free webinar next Wednesday, September 3oth at 11am EDT will provide you with a comprehensive overview of how this process works, and will enable you to achieve the same deep understanding of how to solve difficult problems as the lean masters at Toyota. You can register here .

-- Nigel Thurlow

Nigel is a Lean and Agile Coach for Scrum Inc. A Continuous Improvement Leader, Quality Advocate, and ex member of “The Machine That Changed the World”

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Home > Back to Basics: Problem Solving at Toyota

Back to Basics: Problem Solving at Toyota

19th November 2014 - Lean Enterprise Academy

As Lean practitioners, we all know how to problem solve – don’t we? This is surely basic Lean stuff? Well, the answer may be that we think we do.

But often, it isn’t done well and in many cases may not fix the actual problem we set out to. In many organisations the problem solving process is rushed, focusing on finding the quickest, easiest solution rather than the one that is the most value adding. Toyota, on the other hand, uses a systematic problem solving process which carefully frames the problem, finds true root cause and uses experiments to test countermeasures to ensure the problem is fixed once and for all. This is a fundamental building block of Toyota’s success and is practised by all employees at all levels.

Toyota’s 8 Step Problem Solving

In a practice-based workshop, Mark Davies, Senior Manager at Toyota Lean Management Centre UK, took us through the 8 step problem solving process :-

1 – Clarify the problem 2 – Breakdown the problem 3 – Set a target 4 – Analyse the root cause 5 – Develop countermeasures 6 – See countermeasures through 7 – Monitor the process and results 8 – Standardise successful processes

Toyota understands that stages 1 – 4 are key to ensuring the right problem is tackled and in the right way. Problems can get messy and convoluted so it’s often confusing to teams as to which specific aspect of a problem to focus on. Step 1 and 2 are important to stratify data, often using Pareto to breakdown the problem. Asking what, when, where and who helps to highlight the top issue to be tackled. It then becomes easier to set SMART targets for improvement. Stage 4 and the identification of root cause is, arguably, the most difficult and the most poorly executed. Here Mark took us through a detailed process to move from the prioritised problem to possible direct causes. The mistakes are to jump in and prescribe possible direct causes to the problems without going to Gemba to confirm the facts. Here direct cause – observed causes of the problem – and root cause – the actual end cause we are trying to identify – are often confused. And then the use of the ‘5 whys’ , a simple tool, which is so effective in drilling down the causality chain to the true root causes.

So going through a case study to practise these steps, how did we do? Well, we didn’t get everything right! And the point here is, if we, as Lean practitioners, aren’t able to problem solve in a systematic way, how can we expect to coach and lead others to do the same?

Back to basics methinks.

An Update: Problem Solving 2021

Bringing this post up to date, we’ve developed the Lean Learning Platform so you can hone your skills. We have a range of materials to help you become self reliant on your lean journey. The complementary Level 1 Practical Problem Solving materials aim to provide knowledge around the subject area.

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What is A3 Problem Solving?

A3 problem solving is a Lean approach to reporting issues and presenting ways of addressing them. The simple method, developed by Toyota, bases on documenting a problem, together with its current outcome and a suggested change, on a single sheet of A3 paper (420x297mm), giving it the name. You can use it to make a process change proposal, report on project status, or solve a problem.

A3 takes from the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle . Though it appears to be a step-by-step process, the method tends to be used iteratively, with the problem and solution sections being cyclically updated.

Taiichi Ōno of Toyota was known for not appreciating reports longer than one page, which helped the proliferation of the A3 approach within the automotive giant’s offices. A3 is similar to the 8D report also widespread in the automotive industry, though typically for complaints management. Furthermore, the ability to quickly discern a problem and understand its solution is innate to Lean values.

Lean emphasizes visualization, with examples in value stream mapping and Kanban’s visual workflows. That made a single-page report presenting what is going on was a welcome addition to a Lean operation.

Through shared use of A3s to solve all problems and plan initiatives, companies can start to operate an A3 system thinking methodology: address difficulties, suggest change, innovate, and curate logical reasoning rooted in the current needs.

Why use the A3 approach to solving problems?

Lean provides a competitive advantage, strategic and operational benefits through its objective to increase the value delivered to the customer and to reduce waste. Engaging in a process that allows the team to find the correct, best solution in the shortest possible time is highly beneficial.

Understandably, some reports and proposals must contain extensive amounts of data, and they have their place in a business environment. But imagine the value and advantage that distilling this information to 1 page has. Consider how much faster decisions can be made based on that. Besides the time savings, the opportunity to use the systematic approach of PDCA supplements the problem-solving skills required to propose accurate solutions.

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable. Dwight Eisenhower

It’s the act of planning that is important, as it spells out all known obstacles, visualizes the action plan, and helps to foresee potential outcomes and issues along the way. While documenting your problem on an A3 piece of paper may or may not yield benefits, the act of implementing A3 thinking is what makes the difference.

The benefits of using A3 thinking are:

Quicker problem solving through logical reasoning and application of a step-by-step, visual process. Demanding a root cause identification ensures that difficulties are dealt with, not just temporarily masked.
Easier planning thanks to the application of objective, critical thinking promoted by the A3’s structure.
Team development through repeated use of a structural tool to find root causes of problems and their best solutions. The use of one tool across all company levels also promotes cross-department collaboration and knowledge sharing.
Company growth A3 reports help maintain and keep company knowledge on record, helping to sustain good operating policies and build a strong growth culture rooted in solving a company’s actual problems, not abstract ideas.

How to create an A3 report?

Step 1: The title

It should focus on the problem you are trying to solve and not the solution you want to convey. Examples of titles are: “Decrease Team Misunderstanding of Task Instructions” or “Reduce Customer Complaints with Product XYZ” .

Step 2: Background

According to the authors of “Understanding A3 Thinking: A Critical Component of Toyota’s PDCA Management System” , one of the main strengths of Toyota is that they place importance on understanding a problem. Rather than rush onto a solution, Toyota takes the time to precisely understand what is going on. The principle of going on a Gemba walk attests to this need to perceive problems first-hand.

The report’s background section conveys important related facts and how the problem aligns with the company’s strategic objectives. Presenting this right there on the page helps minimize the cost that a board of highly paid executives would need to spend looking at a problem, without a guarantee of them understanding it, nor coming up with the right solution. Consider this checklist for your background section:

Do I know the needs of my report’s audience?
Have I provided enough context?
Does what it presents align with the audience’s strategic goals?
Can the background be explained in 30 seconds?

Step 3: Current condition

A correct definition and a good understanding of the problem is your path to finding the right solution. That makes working on defining the current condition 90 % of the A3 effort.

The objective here is to make sure everyone is aware of the problem, whether the report documents it appropriately, and whether anyone questions the report’s findings. The use of graphs, charts, or other visual aids is beneficial.

Step 4: Goal

Your target - if you hit it, you know that your problem-solving effort has been a success. But you need to know what metrics will measure success and what the definition of success is. An example could be “reducing customer complaints by 15%, as measured by call center statistics” .

Step 5: The root cause

The focus of the root cause section should be to differentiate between facts and opinions regarding a problem’s cause and effect. You can include your findings from 5 Whys exercises , an Ishikawa diagram , or any other result of your RCA efforts . If the root cause is not defined correctly, the problem will likely resurface, causing waste and negating the Lean principles.

Step 6: Countermeasures

The countermeasures should be the corrective actions to take for the root cause of the problem to be resolved. If not possible - without a process overhaul - you can use containment actions instead to stop the issue from directly impacting the customer. It is OK to address complex problems iteratively, along with the values of continuous improvement .

The section may include a table of the problem causes, actions taken, action owners, and the achieved results.

Step 7: Effect confirmation

Since the A3 exercise bases on the PDCA cycle, this section of your report should show the effort you expended to confirm your findings. The proof that you have indeed solved the problem. For example, software engineers include samples that replicate the bugs and verify they are no longer present after a fix.

If the exercise has not taken place yet, i.e., when you’re presenting a plan to gain approval, you should outline what exercises you will conduct to check if the aim is successful.

Step 8: Follow up actions

The final section should include any other actions that you might want to consider. A principle worth adhering to here is the “Shitsuke - sustain” step of the 5S plan . Consider what you should do to ensure the benefits of this exercise are maintained. And could they possibly be translated to other areas of the company?

An A3 problem-solving report will help you deliver information in a way that provides instant value and can quickly reduce waste.

The most important thing to remember is that the act of Lean problem solving is more important than creating an A3 document that may contain no valid data and be simply a tick on some corporate checklist.

The same is true of all Lean methods and tools - their application alone will not make your company Lean. To truly implement Lean principles, your company culture, thinking, and planning all have to transform.

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A low-risk, tiny step in attempting a culture change in a company could be getting the teams to collaborate on digital Kanban Tool ® boards. Their WIP limits monitoring and process visualization stand a chance to slowly change people’s way of thinking towards more Lean patterns. Please enter valid URL This name is not available Please enter valid email address

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Problem Solving Through Toyota Lean Management

Albert Einstein once wrote, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Simply put, coming up with creative and innovative solutions to problems oftentimes requires you to look at the problem with a fresh perspective. As we’ve discussed in previous Toyota Lean Management blog posts , recognizing and cutting down on waste is critical to increasing your efficiency, reducing costs, and improving throughput. However, in order to make these improvements and see positive changes in ROI, a key step is recognizing where problems exist and working to solve them.

To recognize and solve these problems, it is often helpful to view them with a different lens to reach a newfound conclusion. Toyota’s 8 steps for problem-solving act as the lens that allows you to view different aspects of your operation from a new perspective.

Consider these eight steps as you start on the path to continuous improvement.

1. Clarify the problem

The first step in solving a problem is realizing that one exists. You can define a problem by asking yourself the following questions:

Does my current process deviate from the standard?
Is there a gap in my current process with what I am trying to accomplish vs. what I am accomplishing?
Are my customer’s needs being met with my current process?

If the answer to any of these questions is no, then you know you have a problem that could use some improvement.

2. Break down the problem

Now that you’ve verified the problem, you can begin to break down the issue into smaller, more detailed pieces. It can be helpful to analyze the different inputs and outputs of your process so you can effectively see where you are currently placing your efforts. Don’t bite off more than you can chew. It is much easier to manage and solve smaller problems rather than attack one large problem with little direction.

3. Set a target

The third step is all about commitment and consistency. Now that you’ve broken down the problem, how are you going to go about solving it? How are you going to meet your new deadline, and how long will it take to complete? Allot adequate time for each activity to ensure you are giving each aspect of the project enough attention.

4. Analyze the root cause

Analyzing the root cause allows you to identify each of the factor(s) that caused a problem in the first place. Sometimes there is more than one cause, and it is important to consider each one as you work to address the issue.

5. Develop countermeasures

Establishing the root cause is only half the battle. Now, you must develop countermeasures for each of those root causes to prevent the same issues from occurring again.

6. Implement countermeasures

Now that you’ve established your countermeasures, it is time to put them into action. You may want to seek ideas from other team members to ensure you are not missing any steps. Also, it can be helpful to track how effective each countermeasure is performing along the way and making adjustments where necessary.

7. Evaluate Results and Process

The seventh step is all about implementing a system to review and evaluate how your new process is working. Countermeasures will fail, but it is important to develop an effective system that always looks for areas of improvement in order to reach the desired result.

8. Standardize Successful Processes

After receiving successful results from your previous evaluation, it is time to standardize the process within your team and the entire organization. As you work through the standardization process, continue to look for possible unresolved issues that you may have missed the first time.

Remember, the road to establishing a lean organization doesn’t stop once you improve a few processes. Lean isn’t just about identifying where you can do better; it’s about instilling a culture of respect and developing to create a workplace that your associates enjoy working in. Achieving business goals and leaner processes requires dedication and teamwork from every individual in the organization. Encourage open communication and empower your employees to bring problems to your attention when they are detected.

Understanding Toyota's 5 Whys Approach to Problem Solving

Toyota, a global powerhouse in the automotive industry, is not just renowned for its cars, but also for its unique management principles. Among these principles, the "5 Whys" approach stands out as a systematic methodology for problem-solving. Rooted in the lean manufacturing system, this approach provides an avenue for professionals to dig deep into problems and find their underlying causes.

A Brief History

The origins of the 5 Whys can be traced back to Toyota's post-war Japan production system. Taiichi Ohno, often called the father of the Toyota Production System, emphasized the importance of understanding problems rather than just correcting them superficially. For Ohno, getting to the root cause was paramount, and the 5 Whys became a cornerstone of Toyota's problem-solving and continuous improvement culture.

The Core Principle

At its core, the 5 Whys methodology is breathtakingly simple: when a problem arises, you ask "why" five times. Each answer forms the basis of the next question. By the time the fifth "why" is answered, the fundamental cause of the problem is often illuminated.

An Illustrative Example

Imagine a car doesn't start in the morning. Let's apply the 5 Whys:

Why? - The car's battery is dead.
Why? - The alternator is not functioning.
Why? - The alternator belt has broken.
Why? - The belt was well beyond its useful service life and not replaced.
Why? - The vehicle was not maintained according to the recommended service schedule.

By the end, we discover that the root problem is not just a dead battery or a broken belt, but a systemic failure in maintaining the vehicle.

Benefits of the 5 Whys Approach

Simplicity : The 5 Whys don't require statistical analysis or advanced tools. It's a straightforward method accessible to everyone in the organization.
Efficiency : By targeting the root cause, you can ensure that the problem doesn't recur. This saves time and resources in the long run.
Encourages Team Collaboration : Engaging in the 5 Whys promotes team discussions and collective problem-solving.
Enhances Understanding : It ensures a deep understanding of problems in the processes, leading to smarter decisions and strategies.

Limitations and Points of Caution

However, like all methodologies, the 5 Whys has its limitations.

Over-Simplicity : For complex issues, five iterations might not be enough, and there's a risk of arriving at a simplistic answer.
Bias and Assumptions : The answers can sometimes be influenced by personal bias, leading to incorrect root causes.
Lack of Depth : If not done rigorously, the process might stop at symptoms rather than causes.

To avoid these pitfalls, it's crucial to:

Ensure diverse participation to minimize individual biases.
Cross-verify findings with data and other diagnostic methods.
Always be open to the possibility that more than five questions may be needed.

Toyota's 5 Whys approach has transcended the automotive world, finding a home in sectors ranging from IT to healthcare. Its beauty lies in its simplicity and its relentless focus on understanding problems rather than merely firefighting them. While it's not without its limitations, when applied judiciously and supplemented with other tools and methodologies, it remains a potent weapon in any problem-solver's arsenal.

By embracing the spirit of continuous improvement and a genuine curiosity to understand the heart of challenges, any organization can harness the power of the 5 Whys, just as Toyota has for decades.

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Embracing The Toyota Way: A Practical Problem-Solving Framework for Improved Efficiency

This entry was posted by pabloadmin on March 19, 2023 at 11:17 pm

Introduction

The Toyota Production System (TPS) has long been regarded as a paragon of efficiency and effectiveness in the manufacturing industry. One of the primary principles of TPS is “The Toyota Way,” a management philosophy emphasizing continuous improvement and respect for people. In this blog post, we will share a practical problem-solving framework inspired by The Toyota Way that can be applied to various industries and organizations. This comprehensive blog post will delve into the critical elements of this framework and provide insights on how you can leverage it to improve problem-solving and boost efficiency within your organization.

Understanding the Problem-Solving Framework

This framework consists of five distinct stages, which together form a systematic approach to problem-solving:

A. Define the Problem
B. Break Down the Problem
C. Set Targets
D. Analyze the Root Causes
E. Implement Countermeasures

Each stage is vital in identifying and resolving issues and ensuring practical and sustainable solutions. Let’s look at each stage and how they contribute to the framework.

Stage-by-Stage Analysis

A. define the problem:.

Before diving into problem-solving, clearly defining the issue at hand is essential. This involves understanding the gap between the current situation and the desired state and identifying the symptoms and effects of the problem. A well-defined problem sets the stage for more effective problem-solving and helps ensure that the correct issues are being addressed.

B. Break Down the Problem:

Once the problem has been defined, the next step is to break it down into smaller, more manageable components. This process helps clarify the issue’s scope, making it easier to understand and address. By breaking down the problem, you can more easily identify the underlying causes and focus on finding targeted solutions.

C. Set Targets:

After breaking down the problem, it’s crucial to establish measurable targets that define the desired outcome. These targets should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound ( SMART ). Setting clear and achievable goals ensures that your problem-solving efforts are directed toward meaningful improvements and allows you to track progress over time.

D. Analyze the Root Causes:

With targets in place, it’s time to dive deeper and identify the root causes of the problem. This stage thoroughly analyzes the underlying issues, using tools such as the “5 Whys” technique or the Fishbone Diagram. By identifying the root causes, you can develop targeted countermeasures that address the core issues rather than merely treating the symptoms.

E. Implement Countermeasures:

The final stage of the framework involves developing and implementing countermeasures to address the root causes of the problem. This may include changes to processes, systems, or behaviours. Once countermeasures are in place, monitoring their effectiveness and making adjustments is essential, ensuring that the problem is fully resolved and improvements are sustainable.

Benefits of the Toyota Way-Inspired Problem-Solving Framework

Adopting a structured problem-solving framework like the one inspired by The Toyota Way offers several benefits:

Enhanced problem-solving capabilities: The systematic approach ensures that problems are thoroughly analyzed and addressed, leading to more effective and lasting solutions.
Improved efficiency: By identifying and resolving the root causes of issues, organizations can optimize their processes and systems, reducing waste and improving productivity.
Increased employee engagement: The framework emphasizes teamwork and collaboration, fostering a culture of continuous improvement and empowering employees to contribute to the organization’s success.

Implementing the Framework in Your Organization

To successfully implement this problem-solving framework within your organization, consider the following steps:

Develop a strong understanding of the framework: Ensure that key stakeholders and team members are familiar with the five stages of the problem-solving framework and understand how they contribute to the overall process. This may involve conducting training sessions or workshops to educate employees on the principles and techniques of The Toyota Way-inspired framework.
Establish a culture of continuous improvement: Encourage a mindset of ongoing growth and development within your organization. Promote open communication, collaboration, and a willingness to learn from mistakes. Foster an environment where employees feel empowered to share ideas and contribute to problem-solving efforts.
Adapt the framework to your organization’s unique needs: While its fundamental principles remain the same, it’s essential to tailor the approach to your organization’s specific context and requirements. This may involve adjusting the tools and techniques used in the analysis stage or adapting the implementation process to fit your organization’s structure and culture.
Monitor progress and measure results: Regularly assess the effectiveness of the problem-solving framework by tracking progress towards established targets and measuring the impact of implemented countermeasures. Use this information to identify further improvement areas and refine the framework.
Celebrate successes and share learnings: Recognize and celebrate your team’s achievements as they successfully navigate the problem-solving framework and implement effective solutions. Share the lessons learned and best practices across the organization, fostering a culture of knowledge-sharing and continuous improvement.

The Toyota Way-inspired problem-solving framework offers a structured and systematic approach to identifying and resolving issues within your organization. By embracing this framework, you can enhance problem-solving capabilities, boost efficiency, and foster a culture of continuous improvement. By implementing the framework thoughtfully and deliberately, you can unlock your organization’s potential and achieve lasting success in today’s competitive business environment.

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Toyota Practical Problem Solving (PPS)—Countermeasures and Implement

A Quick Recap

Clarify the Problem
Break Down the Problem
Set a Target
Root-Cause Analysis

Develop Countermeasures and Implement

Monitor Process and Results
Standardize and Share

Developing Multiple Countermeasures

Developing, or at least considering, multiple countermeasures is actually quite common at Toyota. In the West, the first solution is often followed through, no matter how good the solution actually is. At Toyota, they often consider multiple solutions and compare them.

Hence, let your creativity run wild and think of anything you can that could improve the root cause for your problem. Don’t worry too much about the feasibility (yet), since this will be looked at during the next step. Similar to brainstorming, there are no bad ideas, as any idea with not-so-much potential could be an inspiration for an even better idea. More is clearly better here. Do this for all of your root causes.

Selecting Countermeasures

Hopefully you have more than one countermeasure for every one of these root causes you identified. If you have multiple root causes, some countermeasures may impact only one root cause, while other countermeasures impact multiple root causes. Now you need to pick which root causes you actually want to implement.

You may not need to look at eighty different possible solutions to resolve your root cause. But you should definitely take more than one solution under consideration. Look at multiple ideas on how to resolve the root cause, compare them, and pick the most promising ones for implementation. When comparing different solutions, you should consider how effective the solution will address your root cause(s), but you should also consider factors like safety , quality , productivity , cost , timing , and the ease of implementation , as well as its impact on other functions . It is probably best to make a table here with one row for every countermeasure and one column for these performance parameters.

Also, do not to get sidetracked to implement something completely different just because it is a nice idea; instead, make sure that your possible actions do improve the root cause! Additionally, try to see it from the view of different stakeholders, answering the question “What is in it for me?” from the point of view of the customer, company, employee, and also yourself. For the Prius, they went with a single final and most promising concept, as they wanted to design only one car model. For your problem-solving, you could implement multiple solutions.

It is really helpful to also build a consensus here, including employees, management, and other impacted departments. This will greatly improve the acceptance of your countermeasures. But if you did the right thing and already involved these stakeholders while clarifying the problem, breaking down the problem, setting a target, doing the root cause analysis, developing countermeasures, and evaluating them, then these stakeholders should already be on board and supportive of your plans. Also consider who has to be informed and who has to approve.

Based on this, you should create a plan for which solution to implement or try out first (probably the most-promising one/highest-value-adding one unless there are other reasons not to), which one second, and so on. For each you should decide what needs to be done by whom and by when.

And then, finally, just do it! Follow through with your plan and implement or at least test these countermeasures. In my next post we will look at the “Check” and “Act” parts of PDCA, where we monitor the process and results as well as standardize and share the learning. Now, go out, do something about your problems (preferably the right thing after a thorough “plan” of PDCA), and organize your industry!

PS: Many thanks to the team from the Toyota Lean Management Centre at the Toyota UK Deeside engine plant in Wales, where I participated in their 5-day course. This course gave us a lot of access to the Toyota shop floor, and we spent hours on the shop floor looking at processes. In my view, this the only generally accessible course by Toyota that gives such a level of shop floor involvement.

6 thoughts on “Toyota Practical Problem Solving (PPS)—Countermeasures and Implement”

Christoph thank you again for one more “very rich” article. I’m not sure if what I’ll said is really correct or not since I didn’t find a definition in the “Lexical Lean” book about the word “Countermeasure”. In my understanding the meaning of “countermeasure” is some action to improve the current status, not exactly “solving” the problem to assure it’ll no more happen again, as the definition for “corrective action” in the ISO9000 standard. In this way the mindset is the continuous improvement, always pursuing the perfection, doing the PDCA runs very quickly and all the time. Is my understanding correct?

Hello Mario, I think this is a question of wording. At Toyota, improvement almost always starts with a problem to be resolved. This could be for example a defect (clearly a problem), or merely to improve cost (a wider definition of a problem). Generally, for Toyota, a problem is any situation that is not how it should be. The difference to ISO9000 seems to be only wording (although I am neither familiar with nor a fan of ISO 9000)

Interesting! Frankly, I’m out of all this now having retired a few years ago, but what is meant under the PDCA headings seems to vary a lot. Briefly: P – involved defining the problem and installing temporary c’measures and mapping out the game plan with 5Ws+1H. D – was gathering & analysing data; considering possible cms and planning trials. C – was trials & checking A – was installing new standard, maiuntenbance procedures and process review. A 12-step PDCA was developed at NMUK as the ‘process’ for kaizen teams, and a similar problem solving process adopted. Further afield, Ford used an 8D process, and there were others. All worked if applied as intended, but understanding and application varied, and if permanent countermeasures were not forthcoming it was usually the process rather than the practitioners that was blamed. I would say that the number of steps is significant – too few and they become too general and open to (mis)interpretation; too many and people want to take short cuts.

Hi Steve, PDCA is sometimes defined slightly different, but the source of the above is straight from Toyota. But I have also seen the root cause analysis as part of the “do” section.

As for the 12 steps from NMUK (Nissan Motor UK), my source is from the UK, but from Toyota (TMUK, Deeside), and they teach an 8 step process (1 Clarify the problem; 2 Breakdown the problem; 3 Set a target; 4 Analyse the root cause; 5 Develop countermeasures; 6 See countermeasures through; 7 Monitor the process and results; 8 Standardise successful processes; ) For this post series I found it better to merge step 5 and 6, and hence here you find only 7 steps. The 12 steps seem to be very similar, but a bit finer graded (1. Select theme ; 2. Give reasons ; 3. Set targets ; 4. Plan activity ; 5. Gather data ; 6. Analyse data ; 7. Consider solutions ; 8. Plan trials ; 9. Conduct trials ; 10. Standardise changes ; 11. Review the process ; 12. Further improvement;) Either works. Thanks for the input 🙂

Best re-read “The Toyota Way” pp254 and 255 before p256 and also ISO 9001:2015 Clause 10 “Improvement” and 10.1 “NOTE” on for examples of Improvement and where is fits / is the step as in the Toyoya PPS: “Clarify the Problem Break Down the Problem Set a Target Root-Cause Analysis”

This is true in Toyota as stated above but they use and many others now: use:

“Concern” (The ‘problem’ with supporting evidence and statistical / graphical analysis to clearly define such “Pareto / Juran” being the most common in Toyota – “The Toyota Way” p255) “Containment” (to protect the customer and other stakeholders impacted by the Problem / Concern) “Causes (Dr Ishikawa’s 2 types of Basic Causes Analysis for Event Problems and more useful in production, his Type 3 “Process Classification” C&E Diagram – Ishikawa NEVER called his Type A and B Cause Analysis Diagrams the common term of “Fishbone Diagrams”. See his “Guide to QC” ~ 1962 and “Introduction to QC” 1989 books); THEN, “Containment” Finally “Corrective Action” (See ISO 9000:2015 “Action” on page 45.)

Of course all such problems and causes should have been identified in the PFMEA and as The Toyota Way Book says on p255 “comparing actual situation to the standard”. Otherewise there is no problem without a Standard.

Hello MWMcLean, just grabbed my copy of the Toyota Way, and indeed on pg 256 are quite similar. Differences are that at Toyota 1) they clearly define a prioritized target, 2) root cause analysis is not only 5 why (which i find suitable mostly for smaller problems) and 3) at the end Toyota shares the ideas with other plants/locations. Either works. Not sure where the difference comes from, maybe Toyota evolved the method since 2004 (when the book was printed) to 2023 (when I got the info directly from Toyota).

Making a sequence with all “C” words (concern, containment…) is interesting, but for me more confusing than the “normal” text. Thanks for sharing!

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Lean Philosophy

Eight Steps To Practical Problem Solving

The Toyota Way To Problem Solving

The art of problem solving is constantly trying to evolve and be re-branded by folks in various industries. While the new way might very well be an effective method in certain applications. A tried and true way of identifying and solving problems is the eight steps to practical problem solving developed by Toyota, years ago. The system is structured, but simple and practical enough to handle problems of the smallest nature, to the most complex issues.

Using a fundamental and strategic way to solve problems creates consistency within an organization. When you base your results off facts, experience and common sense, the results form in a rational and sustainable way.

The Eight Step Problem Solving Process

Clarify the Problem
Breakdown the Problem
Set the Target
Analyze the Root Cause
Develop Countermeasures
Implement Countermeasures
Monitor Results and Process
Standardize and Share Success

The eight steps to practical problem solving also include the Plan, Do, Check and Act (PDCA) cycle. Steps one through five are the planning process. The doing is found in step six. Step seven is the checking . Step eight involves acting out the results of the new standard.

This practical problem solving can be powerful tool to issues facing your organization. It allows organizations to have a common understanding of what defines a problem and what steps are going to be taken in order to overcome the problem efficiently.

The Eight Steps Broken Down:

Step 1: clarify the problem.

A problem can be defined in one of three ways. The first being, anything that is a deviation from the standard. The second could be the gap between the actual condition and the desired condition. With the third being an unfilled customer need.

In order to best clarify the problem, you have to see the problem with your own eyes. This gives you the details and hands-on experience that will allow you to move forward in the process.

Step 2: Breakdown the Problem

Once you’ve seen the problem first hand, you can begin to breakdown the problem into more detailed and specific problems. Remember, as you breakdown your problem you still need to see the smaller, individual problems with your own eyes. This is also a good time to study and analyze the different inputs and outputs of the process so that you can effectively prioritize your efforts. It is much more effective to manage and solve a bunch of micro-problems one at a time, rather than try and tackle a big problem with no direction.

Step 3: Set the Target

Step three is all about commitment and focus. Your attention should now turn towards focusing on what is needed to complete the project and how long it will take to finish. You should set targets that are challenging, but within limits and don’t put a strain on the organization that would hinder the improvement process.

Step 4: Analyze the Root Cause

This is a vital step when problem solving, because it will help you identify the actual factors that caused the issue in the first place. More often than not, there are multiple root causes to analyze. Make sure you are considering all potential root causes and addressing them properly. A proper root cause analysis, again involves you actually going to the cause itself instead of simply relying on reports.

Step 5: Develop Countermeasures

Once you’ve established your root causes, you can use that information to develop the countermeasures needed to remove the root causes. Your team should develop as many countermeasures needed to directly address any and all root causes. Once you’ve developed your countermeasures, you can begin to narrow them down to the most practical and effective based off your target.

Step 6: Implement Countermeasures

Now that you have developed your countermeasures and narrowed them down, it is time to see them through in a timely manner. Communication is extremely important in step six. You’ll want to seek ideas from the team and continue to work back through the PDCA cycle to ensure nothing is being missed along the way. Consider implementing one countermeasure at a time to monitor the effectiveness of each.

You will certainly make mistakes in throughout your problem solving processes, but your persistence is key, especially in step six.

Step 7: Monitor Results and Process

As mistakes happen and countermeasures fail, you need a system in place to review and modify them to get the intended result. You can also determine if the intended outcome was the result of the action of the countermeasure, or was it just a fluke? There is always room for improvement in the problem solving process, but you need to be able to recognize it when it comes to your attention.

Step 8: Standardize and Share Success

Now that you’ve encountered success along your problem solving path, it is time to set the new processes as the new standard within the organization and share them throughout the organization. It is also a good time to reflect on what you’ve learned and address any possible unresolved issues or troubles you have along the way. Ignoring unresolved issues will only lead to more problems down the road.

Finally, because you are a true Lean organization who believes continuous improvement never stops, it is time to tackle the next problem. Start the problem solving process over again and continue to work towards perfection.

Additional Resources

8D for Problem Solving – creativesafetysupply.com
Training to Use 8D Problem-Solving Tactics – blog.creativesafetysupply.com
The Great Root Cause Problem Solving Debate – realsafety.org
Design Thinking: Empathy and Iteration for Innovation and Problem-Solving – creativesafetypublishing.com
10 Commandments to Continuous Improvement – lean-news.com
Lean Manufacturing Implementation – The First 5 Steps – iecieeechallenge.org
“No Problem” is a Problem – jakegoeslean.com
The Transitional Steps Involved In The 5s Principles During Implementation – 5snews.com
The Tools of Kaizen – blog.5stoday.com

3P and Lean
The Vacation Paradox
Why Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED)?
Total Quality Management And Kaizen Principles In Lean Management
An Engaged Employee is a Productive Employee
Jim Womack’s Top Misconceptions of the Lean Movement
Muda, Mura, and Muri: The Three Wastes

Redesign, Specs & Reviews

Toyota’s 7 Steps to Problem Solving

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Welcome to a comprehensive overview of Toyota’s problem-solving process. With this step-by-step approach, Toyota has overcome countless challenges and continuously improved its operations. But what makes these steps so effective? And how can they be applied to various industries and contexts?

In this article, we’ll explore Toyota’s problem-solving techniques in detail, breaking down each of the . From problem Toyota’s 7 Steps to Problem Solving definition to result evaluation, we’ll explain how Toyota approaches each stage of the process and provide real-life examples of its success.

Whether you’re a business owner, a manager, or an aspiring problem-solver, understanding Toyota’s approach can help you tackle any obstacle more efficiently and effectively. Let’s dive in!

Table of Contents

Step 1: Define the Problem

Before attempting to solve a problem, it is crucial to have a deep understanding of the issue at hand. At Toyota, problem identification is seen as the most critical step in the problem-solving process.

According to Toyota’s problem-solving approach, the first step is to define the problem clearly. This involves gathering all the relevant data, defining the scope of the problem, and identifying the specific symptoms or issues that require attention.

To do this effectively, Toyota encourages a thorough and collaborative problem analysis that involves all relevant stakeholders, including employees, customers, and suppliers. The goal is to identify the underlying causes of the problem and gain a comprehensive understanding of the issue.

“If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.” – W. Edwards Deming

Following this quote by Deming, it is clear that defining the problem is the first step in establishing a successful process for problem-solving. Without a clear definition of the problem, not only will efforts to identify solutions be ineffective, but the underlying issues will not be addressed and will continue to cause problems in the future.

Step 2: Break Down the Problem

Once the problem has been clearly defined, the next step in Toyota’s problem-solving process is to break it down into smaller, more manageable components. This allows for a more in-depth analysis of each part, as well as identification of any interdependencies or patterns that may exist.

Breaking down a problem can be a challenging task, especially if it is complex or multifaceted. However, Toyota has developed several techniques to streamline this process. A common approach is to use a structured problem-solving method that breaks down the problem into smaller modules.

By analyzing each part separately, Toyota can better understand the root causes of the problem and determine the most effective countermeasures to implement.

Another benefit of breaking down a problem is that it helps prevent potential oversights or biases. By examining each component independently, one can avoid making assumptions and jumping to conclusions based on personal biases or past experiences.

Applying Step 2 to Real-Life Problems

Let’s consider a hypothetical example of a manufacturing company that has identified a problem in its production line. The problem is that a particular machine consistently malfunctions, leading to delays in the production process and decreased productivity.

Using Toyota’s approach, the problem would first be defined: the malfunctioning machine is causing delays in the production process, leading to decreased productivity.

The next step would be to break down the problem into smaller, more manageable components. In this case, the production process could be divided into modularized functions such as machine operation, material handling, and packing.

Each of these functions could then be analyzed independently, looking for any potential causes of the problem. For example, a closer examination of the machine operation module may reveal that a faulty sensor is causing the machine to malfunction. A countermeasure could then be developed to replace the faulty sensor, and the results evaluated to ensure the solution was effective.

Through this approach, the problem can be tackled systematically and thoroughly to identify and address the root cause of the issue.

Step 4: Analyze the Root Cause

Identifying the root cause is critical to solving any problem effectively. Toyota’s approach to root cause analysis involves digging deeper into the issue to understand why it exists. This step is often the most time-consuming and challenging, but it is also the most crucial.

To help identify the root cause, Toyota uses techniques such as the 5 Whys and the Fishbone Diagram. The 5 Whys technique involves asking “why” five times to help identify the underlying cause of the problem, while the Fishbone Diagram helps to visually identify the multiple causes that may be contributing to the issue.

By analyzing the root cause, Toyota can develop targeted countermeasures that address the problem at its source. This step ensures that the problem is not merely superficially resolved, but that the solution is sustainable.

Once the problem has been clearly defined and broken down into manageable components, the next step in Toyota’s problem-solving process is to identify the underlying cause of the issue. This is where root cause analysis comes in, and Toyota has developed several techniques for conducting this critical step.

The 5 Whys technique is one approach Toyota uses to get to the root cause of a problem. It involves asking “why” five times, with each subsequent answer leading to a deeper understanding of the issue until the underlying cause is identified. This technique helps to uncover the origin of the problem and helps to avoid merely addressing the symptoms.

Another valuable tool used by Toyota in root cause analysis is the Fishbone Diagram. This technique helps to visualize all the potential causes of the problem, including people, processes, materials, environment, and equipment, among others. By considering all possible factors, Toyota can identify the primary root cause and develop effective countermeasures.

Step 5: Develop Countermeasures

Once the root cause has been identified, the next crucial step is to develop potential countermeasures or solutions. Toyota emphasizes the importance of considering multiple options and evaluating their feasibility. This ensures that the chosen countermeasures not only address the root cause but are also practical and effective in the given context.

There are various techniques that Toyota employs during this step, such as brainstorming, creating action plans, and running simulations. The goal is to generate a range of potential solutions that can be evaluated based on their impact, cost, feasibility, and sustainability.

It is important to note that in this step, Toyota focuses on developing countermeasures, not solutions. This means that the proposed actions are meant to be temporary, allowing for continuous improvement and refinement until a permanent solution is achieved.

Toyota also stresses the need to involve all relevant stakeholders in this step, ensuring that all perspectives and ideas are considered. This promotes a collaborative and inclusive problem-solving culture that values diversity and fosters innovation.

Step 6: Implement the Countermeasures

Once Toyota selects the most viable countermeasures to address the identified root cause(s), it’s time to implement them. This phase requires effective planning, coordination, and communication among all relevant stakeholders to ensure a successful outcome.

Toyota uses a detailed and structured approach to implementation, including developing an implementation plan, allocating necessary resources, and clarifying roles and responsibilities. The company understands that successful implementation depends not only on technical aspects but also on people-related factors, such as buy-in, ownership, and collaboration.

During the implementation phase, Toyota monitors progress and adjusts if necessary. The company emphasizes the importance of involving all stakeholders in the process, gathering feedback, and addressing concerns promptly.

Best Practices for Implementing Countermeasures

Here are some best practices that Toyota recommends for implementing countermeasures:

By following these best practices, companies can increase the likelihood of successful implementation and avoid common pitfalls, such as resistance, misunderstandings, or delays.

Step 7: Evaluate the Results and Standardize

After implementing the chosen countermeasures, it is essential to evaluate their effectiveness and make any necessary adjustments. Toyota emphasizes the importance of assessing the results of the problem-solving process and standardizing successful solutions to ensure consistency and future reference. This step is critical in promoting continuous improvement and efficiency.

When evaluating the results, Toyota uses a variety of measures, including data analysis, feedback from stakeholders, and performance indicators. This helps to determine whether the implemented countermeasures have addressed the root cause(s) and achieved the desired outcomes.

If the results are not satisfactory, Toyota begins the process again, starting with step one. However, if the countermeasures are effective, Toyota standardizes the solution to promote consistency and prevent similar problems from occurring in the future.

Standardizing successful solutions involves documenting the problem-solving process, including the steps taken and the results achieved. This information is shared across the organization to ensure that everyone is aware of the solution and how it was reached.

Benefits of Toyota’s 7 Steps

Toyota’s 7-step problem-solving process offers several benefits for individuals and organizations facing various challenges. By following a systematic and structured approach, this process enables people to identify, analyze, and solve problems efficiently and effectively. Some of the advantages of Toyota’s problem-solving techniques include:

Continuous Improvement : Toyota’s 7 steps promote a culture of continuous improvement by encouraging individuals to identify and eliminate problems through root cause analysis and countermeasure development.
Efficiency : By breaking down complex problems into manageable components and analyzing each part separately, Toyota’s problem-solving approach helps individuals save time and resources.
Cost Savings : By identifying and eliminating the root cause of a problem, organizations can avoid recurring expenses associated with addressing the symptoms of that problem.
Collaboration : Involving all relevant stakeholders in the problem-solving process, Toyota’s 7 steps encourage teamwork, communication, and knowledge sharing.
Standardization : By standardizing successful solutions, Toyota’s problem-solving process enables organizations to replicate effective strategies across different departments and projects.

Overall, Toyota’s 7-step problem-solving process provides a structured approach to addressing challenges that can benefit businesses and individuals alike. By promoting continuous improvement, efficiency, collaboration, and standardization, this process can help organizations stay competitive and achieve their goals.

Real-Life Examples of Toyota’s Problem-Solving Success

Toyota’s 7-step problem-solving process has been successfully implemented in various industries, resulting in significant improvements and positive outcomes. Here are some real-life examples of Toyota’s problem-solving success:

Example 1: Toyota Production System

The Toyota Production System (TPS) is a prime example of how Toyota’s problem-solving process has led to remarkable success. By applying the 7 steps, Toyota was able to create an efficient and flexible production system that minimized waste and increased productivity. This approach not only boosted Toyota’s profitability but also set a new standard for manufacturing industries worldwide.

Example 2: Toyota’s Health Care Initiative

In 2001, Toyota applied its problem-solving process to the health care industry, partnering with the University of Michigan Health System. By using the 7 steps, Toyota helped the health system streamline its processes, reduce errors, and improve patient care. The results were impressive, with the initiative saving over $5 million in the first year alone.

Example 3: Toyota’s Environmental Efforts

Toyota’s problem-solving approach is not limited to operational improvements but also extends to environmental challenges. In 2002, Toyota faced an issue with excessive landfill waste generated by its suppliers. By applying the 7 steps, Toyota was able to develop a comprehensive waste reduction plan that not only addressed the immediate problem but also reduced overall waste production. This initiative saved over $1 million and reduced 7,000 tons of waste in one year.

These examples demonstrate the versatility and effectiveness of Toyota’s problem-solving process in various industries and problem-solving scenarios.

FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions about Toyota’s Problem-Solving Process

Here are some common questions and concerns related to Toyota’s 7-step problem-solving process:

Q: Is Toyota’s problem-solving approach only applicable to manufacturing industries?

No, Toyota’s problem-solving process can be applied to various industries and scenarios. The 7 steps focus on identifying and addressing root causes, setting clear goals, developing effective solutions, and continuous improvement. These principles can be useful in any setting.

Q: Do I need to follow all 7 steps for every problem I encounter?

Not necessarily. The 7 steps are a guideline to help ensure a systematic and effective approach to problem-solving. However, depending on the nature and complexity of the problem, some steps may not be necessary or may require more attention than others.

Q: How long does it take to implement Toyota’s problem-solving process?

The timeline for implementing the 7 steps depends on the nature and complexity of the problem, as well as the resources and expertise available. Some problems may be resolved quickly, while others may require more time and effort. The key is to ensure a thorough and systematic approach to problem-solving.

Q: What happens if the selected countermeasures do not work?

If the implemented countermeasures do not produce the desired result, Toyota recommends revisiting the analysis and problem definition stages to identify any missed or underlying issues. The process may need to be repeated with adjusted countermeasures until the problem is resolved.

Q: How can I ensure that the solutions are standardized for future reference?

Once the problem has been resolved, it is important to document the process and the selected countermeasures, as well as any results or outcomes. This information can be used as a reference for future problem-solving endeavors and can help ensure the standardization of effective solutions.

Q: Can Toyota’s problem-solving process be used for personal problems or issues?

Yes, the 7 steps can be applied to personal problems or issues as well. The process emphasizes identifying root causes, setting clear goals, and developing effective solutions, which can be useful in any problem-solving scenario.

Conclusion Toyota’s 7 Steps to Problem Solving

In conclusion, Toyota’s 7 Steps to Problem Solving is an invaluable approach that promotes efficiency and continuous improvement in any organization. This methodology fosters a culture of critical thinking, teamwork, and proactive response to issues.

It is a versatile tool that can be applied across various industries – not just in the automotive sector. Implementing these steps can lead to significant cost savings, improved customer satisfaction, and overall business growth. Therefore, every organization aiming for operational excellence should consider adopting Toyota’s practical and systematic problem-solving strategy.

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Photo-illustration of a mini AI bot looking at a laptop atop a stock of books, sitting next to human hands on a laptop.

Generative AI is transforming the software development industry. AI-powered coding tools are assisting programmers in their workflows, while jobs in AI continue to increase. But the shift is also evident in academia—one of the major avenues through which the next generation of software engineers learn how to code.

Computer science students are embracing the technology, using generative AI to help them understand complex concepts, summarize complicated research papers, brainstorm ways to solve a problem, come up with new research directions, and, of course, learn how to code.

“Students are early adopters and have been actively testing these tools,” says Johnny Chang , a teaching assistant at Stanford University pursuing a master’s degree in computer science. He also founded the AI x Education conference in 2023, a virtual gathering of students and educators to discuss the impact of AI on education.

So as not to be left behind, educators are also experimenting with generative AI. But they’re grappling with techniques to adopt the technology while still ensuring students learn the foundations of computer science.

“It’s a difficult balancing act,” says Ooi Wei Tsang , an associate professor in the School of Computing at the National University of Singapore . “Given that large language models are evolving rapidly, we are still learning how to do this.”

Less Emphasis on Syntax, More on Problem Solving

The fundamentals and skills themselves are evolving. Most introductory computer science courses focus on code syntax and getting programs to run, and while knowing how to read and write code is still essential, testing and debugging—which aren’t commonly part of the syllabus—now need to be taught more explicitly.

“We’re seeing a little upping of that skill, where students are getting code snippets from generative AI that they need to test for correctness,” says Jeanna Matthews , a professor of computer science at Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y.

Another vital expertise is problem decomposition. “This is a skill to know early on because you need to break a large problem into smaller pieces that an LLM can solve,” says Leo Porter , an associate teaching professor of computer science at the University of California, San Diego . “It’s hard to find where in the curriculum that’s taught—maybe in an algorithms or software engineering class, but those are advanced classes. Now, it becomes a priority in introductory classes.”

“Given that large language models are evolving rapidly, we are still learning how to do this.” —Ooi Wei Tsang, National University of Singapore

As a result, educators are modifying their teaching strategies. “I used to have this singular focus on students writing code that they submit, and then I run test cases on the code to determine what their grade is,” says Daniel Zingaro , an associate professor of computer science at the University of Toronto Mississauga . “This is such a narrow view of what it means to be a software engineer, and I just felt that with generative AI, I’ve managed to overcome that restrictive view.”

Zingaro, who coauthored a book on AI-assisted Python programming with Porter, now has his students work in groups and submit a video explaining how their code works. Through these walk-throughs, he gets a sense of how students use AI to generate code, what they struggle with, and how they approach design, testing, and teamwork.

“It’s an opportunity for me to assess their learning process of the whole software development [life cycle]—not just code,” Zingaro says. “And I feel like my courses have opened up more and they’re much broader than they used to be. I can make students work on larger and more advanced projects.”

Ooi echoes that sentiment, noting that generative AI tools “will free up time for us to teach higher-level thinking—for example, how to design software, what is the right problem to solve, and what are the solutions. Students can spend more time on optimization, ethical issues, and the user-friendliness of a system rather than focusing on the syntax of the code.”

Avoiding AI’s Coding Pitfalls

But educators are cautious given an LLM’s tendency to hallucinate . “We need to be teaching students to be skeptical of the results and take ownership of verifying and validating them,” says Matthews.

Matthews adds that generative AI “can short-circuit the learning process of students relying on it too much.” Chang agrees that this overreliance can be a pitfall and advises his fellow students to explore possible solutions to problems by themselves so they don’t lose out on that critical thinking or effective learning process. “We should be making AI a copilot—not the autopilot—for learning,” he says.

“We should be making AI a copilot—not the autopilot—for learning.” —Johnny Chang, Stanford University

Other drawbacks include copyright and bias. “I teach my students about the ethical constraints—that this is a model built off other people’s code and we’d recognize the ownership of that,” Porter says. “We also have to recognize that models are going to represent the bias that’s already in society.”

Adapting to the rise of generative AI involves students and educators working together and learning from each other. For her colleagues, Matthews’s advice is to “try to foster an environment where you encourage students to tell you when and how they’re using these tools. Ultimately, we are preparing our students for the real world, and the real world is shifting, so sticking with what you’ve always done may not be the recipe that best serves students in this transition.”

Porter is optimistic that the changes they’re applying now will serve students well in the future. “There’s this long history of a gap between what we teach in academia and what’s actually needed as skills when students arrive in the industry,” he says. “There’s hope on my part that we might help close the gap if we embrace LLMs.”

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Rina Diane Caballar is a writer covering tech and its intersections with science, society, and the environment. An IEEE Spectrum Contributing Editor, she's a former software engineer based in Wellington, New Zealand.

Yes! Great summary of how things are evolving with AI. I’m a retired coder (BS comp sci) and understand the fundamentals of developing systems. Learning the lastest systems is now the greatest challenge. I was intrigued by Ansible to help me manage my homelab cluster, but who wants to learn one more scripting language? Turns out ChatGPT4 knows the syntax, semantics, and work flow of Ansible and all I do is tell is to “install log2ram on all my proxmox servers” and I get a playbook that does just that. The same with Docker Compose scripts. Wow.

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Title: self-reflection in llm agents: effects on problem-solving performance.

Abstract: In this study, we investigated the effects of self-reflection in large language models (LLMs) on problem-solving performance. We instructed nine popular LLMs to answer a series of multiple-choice questions to provide a performance baseline. For each incorrectly answered question, we instructed eight types of self-reflecting LLM agents to reflect on their mistakes and provide themselves with guidance to improve problem-solving. Then, using this guidance, each self-reflecting agent attempted to re-answer the same questions. Our results indicate that LLM agents are able to significantly improve their problem-solving performance through self-reflection ($p < 0.001$). In addition, we compared the various types of self-reflection to determine their individual contribution to performance. All code and data are available on GitHub at this https URL

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How to use Toyota's legendary A3 problem-solving technique
The A3 technique is a structured way to solve problems. It's part of the Lean methodology, developed by Toyota back in the mid-'40s. This doesn't mean you need to implement a Lean way of working to take advantage of this process — it can work as a standalone exercise. Granted, A3 isn't an inspiring name, but the story of its origins ...
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Lean is a lot of problem solving. Toyota excels at such problem solving, and they have developed their practical problem solving (PPS) approach. ... which makes changing content easy by using an eraser. Nowadays digital tools are also often used, although Toyota still does this mostly by hand using pencil on paper. Digital A3s are easier to ...
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A3 8 Step Practical Problem Solving - Skill Level 1: Knowledge Optional - Additional Information & Reading How the A3 Came to Be Toyota's Go-To Management Process. by Isao Yoshino. August 2, 2016. The discussion below between John Shook and Isao Yoshino first appeared on The Lean Enterprise Institute website www.lean.org.
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The A3 process is a problem solving tool Toyota developed to foster learning, collaboration, and personal growth in employees. The term "A3" is derived from the particular size of paper used to outline ideas, plans, and goals throughout the A3 process (A3 paper is also known as 11" x 17" or B-sized paper). Toyota uses A3 reports for ...
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The A3 is the largest standard paper size in Toyota.) To quote Jim Womack, the author of the famous book on the Toyota Production System, 'The Machine that Changed the World': The most basic definition of an A3 would be a Plan Do Check Act (P-D-C-A) storyboard or report, reflecting Toyota's way of capturing the process on one sheet of paper.
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The Toyota Way To Problem Solving. The art of problem solving is constantly trying to evolve and be re-branded by folks in various industries. While the new way might very well be an effective method in certain applications. A tried and true way of identifying and solving problems is the eight steps to practical problem solving developed by ...
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How to use Toyota’s legendary A3 problem-solving technique

What is the A3 technique?

How to solve a problem with A3

How to create an A3 report

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Toyota’s Secret: The A3 Report

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Back to Basics: Problem Solving at Toyota

Toyota’s 8 Step Problem Solving

An Update: Problem Solving 2021

What is A3 Problem Solving?

Why use the A3 approach to solving problems?

The benefits of using A3 thinking are:

How to create an A3 report?

Step 1: The title

Step 2: Background

Step 3: Current condition

Step 4: Goal

Step 5: The root cause

Step 6: Countermeasures

Step 7: Effect confirmation

Step 8: Follow up actions

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About Toyota

Electric Pallet Jacks

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Reach Trucks

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Automate Material Transportation

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Become a Greener Business

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Convert from IC to Electric

Analyze Warehouse Space

Increase Employee Education