The purpose of the A3 is to put all the relevant details of a project on one piece of paper. The A3 tells the story of the project in a clear and succinctly as possible. The term A3 comes from the size of the page, approximately 11X17 inches. Toyota developed the tool. They wanted a simple visual means of documentation that was easy to create and keep up to date. The A3 is a living document, meant to updated when changes occur. Many organizations fill them out in pencil to make it easier to change.
The A3 format varies from organization to organization. The key is to have a standard format throughout the organization. Despite the varying formats, most A3s have the following common elements:
- Department: Deoartment who is conducting the project
- Process Owner: The individual who will own the process when complete
- A3 Owner: The person who is responsible for keeping the A3 up to date.
- Last Updated: Last date the form was updated
- Background: background and issues that lead to the project being started
- Current State: What is happening or being done at the present time. Do we have measurable data? What are the key performance indicators (KPI)?
- Future State: What are the goals or targets for the project? What are the KPIs we want to achieve?
- Root Cause Analysis: What is the root cause of the problem?
- Countermeasures: What is being done to eliminate the root cause? In this section comments should include who owns the countermeasure, state i.e.in progress, complete. Typically a PDCA form will be completed for each countermeasure. However, more complex countermeasures may require a baby A3 detailing that specific countermeasure.
- Follow Up: Any items that need to be followed up.
The A3 tells the story of a project. Anyone who reads the A3 will know exactly. What the problem was, what was done to eliminate it, what issues, if any are still outstanding and the plan for improvement, all on a single piece of paper.