Sunday, May 30, 2010

PDCA – Plan, Do, Check and Act outside the box!

Many people (or at least to whom I know) have restricted themselves with the limited use of PDCA approach. After whence I completed my QMS Lead Auditor course, I always try to follow my instructor’s point “follow the PDCA at every step”. I get wondered whenever I followed this magical point. I tried several time to structuralize my activities under the container of PDCA and I always succeeded to straighten them. Today I will tell you how you can use the different visuals to organize your activities and data under analysis to grab the benefits of PDCA more effectively.


In the last composite shape you have seen two traditional diagrams are merged with modification. Traditional Cause and Effect Diagram that is usually used with Traditional 4M concept (Man, Machine, Material and Method) can be build with PDCA concept in a situation where you have so many causes to produce an effect and you want to relate all that causes with planning, doing, checking and acting phases or activities to identify the problematic phase or phase on which you have to focus more.

Its now your turn to think how could you use the new visuals of PDCA at their best!