Page 413 - The Toyota Way Fieldbook

386 THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK

Many people look at this A3 and immediately think that it is “too busy” or
“complicated.” This is a normal reaction to a very involved A3. There is a lot of
information fit into a small space. If this A3 were presented to you, you would
see that in fact the entire story can be explained in about three and a half min-
utes and is quite clear. The following text would be used to explain this A3, and
it is presented as a reporting of results (the activity is complete):

As you can see [pointing to the trend graph in “Define the Problem Situation”], the
fabrication line was consistently below goal for units per hour, and at the end of last
year it had gotten worse. As a result of being under the units per hour goal [point
to the overtime graph] there was approximately $80,000 per month in overtime
cost, which was increasing, and also our late shipments to the customers [point to
the late shipments graph] were increasing. If we did not take action, this problem
most likely would have gotten worse. [End of the Problem Situation section.]
An analysis of our production losses [point to the first graph in “Problem
Analysis”] showed that we were losing time during the operation cycle, and our
available run time was reduced because of cleaning time. We were spending 30
minutes per shift for cleaning and wanted to reduce that to 15 minutes per shift
[point to the chart]. Observation of the work area showed that contaminants were
not being contained properly, causing additional cleaning time. Reducing the
cleaning time by 15 minutes per shift will increase the units per hour by 2.5.
Observation and analysis of the work steps indicated 10 seconds of walking
time for this operation [point to the yamazumi, or stack chart]. The worker flow dia-
gram [point to the diagram] shows that the location of parts and equipment was
causing excessive walking time. A reduction of one-half of the walking will be a
five-second savings per cycle, which will yield an additional seven units per labor
hour. [End of the Problem Analysis section.]
To get some temporary relief from this problem we decided to perform cleaning
during lunch and breaks [point to each countermeasure in the “Action Plans to
Correct Problems” as it is mentioned]. We had a temporary cleaning service that
performed that task until we could implement the permanent countermeasure to
more effectively collect the dirt. Also, we taped cardboard boxes to certain locations
on the machine to capture dirt temporarily. This made the clean-up easier. These
short-term countermeasures were completed immediately. During the second
week we changed the layout of the work area and repositioned the start button.
These changes reduced walking time and reduced the cycle time. Our permanent
countermeasure was to enclose the bottom of each machine with a skirt to further
reduce the cleaning requirement.
We needed to make some modifications to the dust collection system, and
each machine was modified as well. This task required the support of maintenance
and engineering, and we planned to complete one machine per week over a four
week period. We checked progress each week to make sure we were on target.
These are permanent countermeasures that will reduce the cleaning requirement
to 15 minutes. [End of the Action Plans to Correct Problems section.]