Title: Toyota's A3 reports for improving 6-S activities: an aeronautical industry case study

Authors: R. Gnanaguru, K. Puvaneswari, Jogendra Mallick, C. Jegadheesan, V. Mohan Sivakumar, S.R. Devadasan

Addresses: Light Combat Aircraft Production Group, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Bangalore – 560 017, India. ' Light Combat Aircraft Production Group, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Bangalore – 560 017, India. ' Light Combat Aircraft Production Group, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited, Bangalore – 560 017, India. ' Paavai Engineering College, Pachal-637 018, Namakkal, India. ' Mechanical Engineering Department, PSG Polytechnic College, Coimbatore-641 004, India. ' Production Engineering Department, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore-641 004, India

Abstract: 6-S (5-S and sixth |S| as Safety) is considered as foundation of all the improvement activities like TQM, TPM, Lean, etc. Implementation of 6-S principles helps everyone in the organisation to live a better and safe life. The sustenance of 6-S requires a small team. The team should be a self-directed work team adept in problem solving in addition to their regular work. But, practically most of the organisations have failed due to improper communication regarding 6-S related issues and low responsibilities. To overcome this subjectivity, the authors introduced Toyota|s A3 report in 6-S process as an improvement tool. The A3 report is named because the report is printed on an A3 size sheet which contains pictures, diagrams and charts. This paper presents a case study to show how A3 reports are implemented in 6-S process improvement in an aeronautical industry.

Keywords: 6-S; Toyota; A3 report; process improvement; Hindustan Aeronautics Limited; HAL; case study; aeronautical industry; India; self-directed work teams.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOM.2011.042519

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2011 Vol.10 No.2, pp.239 - 254

Published online: 11 Mar 2015 *

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