The intent of Lean is continuous improvement through the elimination of waste.   The idea of “continuous improvement” suggests many small, sustainable improvements over time that contribute to generate large sustainable improvement. Select a small measureable or directly observable problem or challenge of your choice.  Some examples might include:

• A chronic (but small) problem at your place of employment – i.e., out-of-stock, wrong order, late meeting-starts, etc.
• Not receiving 100% on all homework assignments at Oregon Tech
• Inconsistently sized cookies in a batch
• Being late (i.e., for work, school and/or other engagements)
• Program bugs (i.e., code error, broken links, etc.)
• Accounting errors
• Shoe(s) coming untied during the course of the day
• Another small problem of your choice.

The A3 framework serves many purposes, one of which is to “storyboard” Kaizen events.  Use the A3 framework to conduct a small Kaizen event in order to eliminate the problem or waste created by the problem.  Please submit a completed Kaizen A3 that includes the following for full credit at a minimum:

1. Problem statement and goal statement
2. Current state in measureable or directly observable terms
3. Future (desired) state
4. Root causes of the problem
5. Solution(s) to address the key cause(s) of the problem
6. At least one completed PDSA Test-of-Change form to pilot the solution
7. Confirmed State (results of the PDSA Test-of-Change)
8. Recommendations to sustain the improvement
9. Key learnings as a result of the Kaizen