R2: PDCA

PDCA: Plan-Do-Check-Act


Background
It's a cycle of four stages, which people use when new things apply to a system. It's also called "the Deming Wheel." The inventors of this quality control method  was first acclaimed by Walter Shewhart, but more likely to be promoted by W. Edwards Deming. 


When to use it

• -         Employ any change
• -         Continuous improvement
• -         New development

Get to know it!

As PDCA is Plan-Do-Check-Act, its procedure is following;

Plan

• -         Prepare for the change
• -        Identify what need to be change
• -         Set up what need to be done

Do

• -         Follow the plan
• -         Trial by a small-scale, so it won’t interrupt any routines

Check

• -         Analyze the results
• -         Ensure that it is a recurring output (same result all the time), if not
• -         Identify what went wrong

Act

• -         Apply the tested change on larger scale, or
• -         If anything happens unexpected, go back to the first step, ‘Plan.’

"the Deming Wheel" or PDCA cycle

(Source: http://www.hci.com.au/hcisite3/toolkit/pdcacycl.htm)

latest update on: 4/20/2011