S
Steve90755
My instructor would like me to clarify: is it the PDCA or PDSA cycle? He thinks Deming changed it to PDSA and is wanting to clarify that.
PDCA (Walter Shewhart Cycle - Check) or PDSA (Deming - Study) cycle?
apestate
Quite Involved in Discussions
He did.
He changed it because Study implies understanding the sources of variation in the process.
The Act portion is somewhat more controversial, if a four word concept can be controversial. Act should probably mean improvement if the PDCA cycle is used for process improvement, and something like make the changes permanent if the PDCA cycle is used more generally. Or something.
He changed it because Study implies understanding the sources of variation in the process.
The Act portion is somewhat more controversial, if a four word concept can be controversial. Act should probably mean improvement if the PDCA cycle is used for process improvement, and something like make the changes permanent if the PDCA cycle is used more generally. Or something.
LOL - good one.atetsade said:
R
ralphsulser
Yeah! PDSD, I like this, and have experienced that in some cases it is better to decide to do nothing rather than use "process molestation" just for the sake of doing something. Leave it alone and quit adjusting for every variation.atetsade said:
Memory loss temporary or permanent
Why did you ask this when you got the answer 2 weeks ago
"Dr. Deming’s PDCA cycle is applicable to any process" advice/suggestions?
Why did you ask this when you got the answer 2 weeks ago
"Dr. Deming’s PDCA cycle is applicable to any process" advice/suggestions?
Y
Yarik
The concept itself doesn't seem to be controversial to me. But some "explanations" of this concept that I've seen in the past few weeks definitely are more confusing than explaining. Sometimes some people are r-r-really good at making simple things look complicated... or, quite the contrary, oversimplified.
I think that equating the "act" step with improvement is one of the most frequent mis-interpretations (oversimplifications) of this step - exactly because of the reason mentioned by Jim and Ralph:
Personally, I am not happy with the name "act", too. But I think that just "decide" would be even less adequate because it would imply just making a decision, without acting upon it. I believe that even a decision to reject (reject whatever had just been planned, done and studied) should be accompanied by some activity (like, for instance, documenting the decision and its reasons, some "cleanup" after the cycle, etc.).
At the same time, I must agree that many interpretations of PDCA or PDSA cycle totally miss the point that the "act" step includes a very important accept/reject decision to be made.
BTW, from time to time, I feel a strong urge to unite the "study" and "act" steps into one. I think one reason of such feeling is that these two steps - together! - are exactly what many people/organizations overlook: they do "plan" and "do", but that's it. Wouldn't it be easier to convince someone that they are missing just one step (out of three necessary steps) rather than two (out of four)?
J
JaneB
Wouldn't it be easier to convince someone that they are missing just one step (out of three necessary steps) rather than two (out of four)?
Not necessarily. You'd have to have agreement...
I prefer the separation of phases, because it reinforces the importance of analysis/study/what-have-you before the deciding/acting (which may include deciding not to act, as Jim so wisely points out). Too often people leap straight into 'solution mode' without sufficient analysis beforehand. But of course no engineer would ever do this, I know.