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Books : Understanding A3 Thinking: A Critical Component of Toyota's PDCA Management SystemIn association with Amazon.comRating:  - A3 for Purist'sPractical and informative, this will prepare you to implement structure and visibility of your process improvement transformation Rating:  - Excellent Summary of A3 ThinkingI finally got my copy of this book in the mail last week. I guess it is sold out and hard to obtain at any site. I'm glad to finally have mine. Given some of the comments above I'm guessing there was either a delay at the publishers or they simply did not anticipate all the demand. I did finally get mine however... Regardless I am please to note that this book is an excellent summary of A3 Thinking. I've had some exposure to the topic in the past and always been left wanting more. This finally gets at a lot of questions I had about the concept. If you have ever wanted to learn what an A3 report is and more importantly the thought process behind one then this is the best place to start that I know of. The print is a little small and the text is 164 pages I think the 184 page figure comes from including the other pages in the foreword, acknowledgements, and introduction sections etc. However there is no shortage of good information inside. I zipped through it over the weekend and got some great insights right away. The contents of the book include the following eight chapters. Each is roughly about 20 pages in length. 1. A Basis for Managerial Effectiveness 2. A3 Thinking - the Seven Elements 3. The Problem Solving A3 Report 4. The Proposal A3 Report 5. The Status A3 Report 6. Notes on Form and Style 7. Supporting Structures 8. Conclusion I thought the second chapter on the seven elements A3 Thinking was particularly insightful and appreciated the advice on the different types of examples as well. The book is both a good "what is" summary of the topic and contains some very practical advice about "how to" write different types. Equally importantly for me at least it included some insight on how to critique A3's as well. I give the work five stars as it fills a void in the lean literature in a very readable manner. Rating: - A3 Thinking, Sobek and Smalley hit it right on the head when they state that it's all about the substance over form, Having begun a career as a engineer in the early 80's, everything I heard Deming talking about the PDCA Cycle made sense, but it was often hard to move it into action. Back then it was much harder (for many reasons) to find good reference resources (and leaders) with the focus and depth of knowledge about deployment that is presented in this book. This is a nice fast read that helps you think through the thinking process, provides the basic framework and guides you through examples. Rating:  - Non worthyI am trying to get it from amazon since two months ago. It has not been in stock since the very begining. Rating:  - Small and expensiveIt is very expensive book. Only 165 pages. Not 184. Got mine from Barnes and Noble, but arrived damaged. Amazon is much better than BN, but I wanted to save few dollars with BN, I'm now paying hte price. |
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