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Use this cycle for continual process improvement
The plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle is a well-known model for continual process improvement (CPI).1 It teaches organizations to plan an action, do it, check to see how it conforms to the plan and act on what has been learned.2
The PDCA cycle is made up of four steps for improvement or change (see Figure 1):3
1.Plan: Recognize an opportunity, and plan the change.
2.Do: Test the change.
3. Check: Review the test, analyze the results and identify learn-tings.
4.Act: Take action based on what you learned in the check step. If the change was successful, incorporate the learnings from the test into wider changes. If not, go through the cycle again with a different plan.
A brief history
The PDCA cycle is also known by two other names, the Shewhart cycle and the Deming cycle.
Walter A. Shewhart first discussed the concept of PDCA in his 1939 book, Statistical Method From the Viewpoint of Quality Control.
Shewhart said the cycle draws its structure from the notion that constant evaluation of management practices,...