Lean Leadership on a Napkin

Chapter 5

Common Lean Tools

What follows is a list of commonly used tools that you will see in most lean enterprises, along with a brief explanation of each.

Note: Most tools are easily found on the internet, with samples of each to see how they are used. This is a slightly deeper dive into each than what was offered in Chapter 4, “Lean Speak”. Earlier you learned some of the most common terms but without much depth. Some of the terms are also common tools. Let's revisit.

The A3

This is another Toyota invention. It is a single-page ‘story’ most commonly used for problem-solving. The term A3 refers to the size of paper, it is written as (11 × 17). A4 also refers to a paper size, the more common 8.5 × 11 sheet. If you look in the corner of ...