The Deming Cycle, also known as PDCA or the Deming wheel, is a four-step process used to solve business problems. The steps are plan, do, check, and act, with an emphasis on refining planned outcomes and evaluating results to make necessary changes. The cycle is named after William Edwards Deming, an American professor and statistician who developed management strategies in the mid to late 20th century.
The Deming Cycle is a four-step process used to solve problems in business. It’s also called the Deming wheel, but is probably better known as PDCA. This means plan, do, check, act.
The first phase of the Deming cycle is planning. Compared to most business planning, special emphasis is placed on working out what is needed to achieve a very specific target result. In many cases, the process is designed to improve procedures by refining planned outcomes in a more specific way.
The second stage is doing. This simply involves trying out the process that has been planned in a practical context. Usually this is done on as small a scale as possible while still yielding useful results. The third stage is control, sometimes listed as a study. This involves evaluating or measuring the results and then comparing them to the expected results to detect any differences.
The final stage in the Deming cycle is to take action. This first involves analyzing the differences between the expected and the actual result. The idea is to find out where in the process the differences have been caused, evaluate what changes need to be made to remedy that, and then make those changes.
After making the changes, the business goes through the cycle again. Then evaluate and adjust and the remaining or newly created differences between the expected and actual results. The company continues to cycle until the expected and actual results are the same and no further changes are needed.
The Deming Cycle is named after William Edwards Deming. He was an American professor and statistician who developed several management and organizational strategies in the mid to late 20th century. He was best known for his work in Japan and with the Ford Motor Company.
Another name for the cycle is the Shewhart cycle. This name comes from Walter Andrew Shewhart, another American statistician. Deming is believed to have used the “Shewhart cycle” when he first referred to the process, later transitioning to the PDSA, standing up to plan, do, study, act.
It should be noted that the structure and foundations of the Deming cycle are somewhat reminiscent of the scientific method. This is the cycle through which a hypothesis is developed, experiments are conducted, the results are evaluated, and the hypothesis is reviewed and retested. The equivalent of the completion stage of the Deming cycle is for the hypothesis to be widely accepted and confirmed as correct.
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