It was exciting to learn that the PDCA cycle applies to real life. Johnny's inspiring story (Part 1, Part 2, & Part 3) shows us that spinning the PDCA wheel leads to substantial and permanent improvement. By applying the PDCA cycle, he went from financial disaster to financial freedom one cycle at a time!
Believe it or not, the PDCA cycle works for all kinds of industries. In fact, the ISO 9001 standard for superior performance is rooted in the PDCA or Deming cycle.
As we have discussed before, car manufacturers have implemented Quality Improvement in their processes and products. Do you recognize this car logo?
Toyota is not only an example in terms of making the most reliable cars in the world, but they are a standard of quality. We enjoy their cars, but there is a reason for their success. There is so much to say about Toyota's passion for quality, that many books have been written on the Toyota Way for management, leadership, and continuous improvement. The following is Toyota's 8-step process for problem-solving and quality improvement.
1. Clarify the Problem 2. Breakdown the Problem 3. Set the Target 4. Analyze the Root Cause 5. Develop Countermeasures 6. Implement Countermeasures 7. Monitor Results and Process 8. Standardize and Share Success
If you understood the PDCA cycle, you will identify that the PLAN phase involves steps 1,2,3,4, and 5. The DO phase is the same as step 6. The CHECK phase is step 7. Lastly, the ACT phase is step 8.
Just like Toyota, many businesses have found substantial, permanent, and increasing success due to their dedication to quality improvement. PDCA leads to the 8 steps, and the 8 steps lead to true problem-solving for quality improvement.
During the following days, we will break down this process as we prepare to implement quality improvement in YOUR particular line of work. Whether you work on drafting floor plans, producing intricate engineered drawings, with project coordination, account receivables, or quality control - no matter your area of work - there is room for improvement.
In light of the PDCA cycle and the 8 steps above, start thinking of how you can implement the quality improvement process in your own daily work. More will be coming in the next few days of the IMPROVE! series. Please use the comment section below to share your ideas!
The area in which I would like to implement the PDCA cycle is the reduction of versions sent of Fire alarm projects to QC, Reviewing my history in the last 25 projects worked, the average of versions is 6, I think that reducing 25% implementing PDCA can be a good achievement.
I think it's important to apply the PDCA cycle to reduce the number of errors in a project. In my case, the problem is anxiety when developing a project. And to break that problem I need to take more care of each project more carefully. And for that, I have created my own checklist to be able to do point-to-point each part of the project and thus reduce the number of errors. Achieving a reduction of these errors.
I think that throughout our lives, we have many decisions to make. Some of these decisions may have big, small or simply zero impact. I believe that taking the challenge of carrying out PDCA is a decision that will have a strong impact, in any area not necessarily in the professional field.
The first step is to recognize that there must be a change in my life, make the decision to change but the most important thing is to stay, and this tool is basic to achieve it.
I think that PDCA is important to improve all the areas in my life, identify the problems and create a plan to improve them it’s the way to grow. In my work. I have some things that I need to improve one of that is the number of versions in my projects, using the PDCA I have identified that one of the causes for which my number of versions increases is for small mistakes that I could have avoided. The solution to this problem could be to carefully review the project before submitting it to a QC review. This could save the QC team time and help me to reduce the number of versions.
PDCA can help anyone that has the discipline to follow it. It can be implemented on personal goals like weight loss, home organization, finances, etc. and work related, programing your task a previous day. If it is shared with others, you become better at it