Practical application of PDCA

1. REAL CASE CONTEXT

San Miguel Arcángel, S.A. is a Spanish company dedicated to processing Alperujo, a

waste material coming from the Olive Oil industry that can be transformed into a series
of valuable sub-products. This company has in its value chain, the production of some
processes and resources which manifest the customer’s demand. As there are a lot of
almazaras in Andalusia, the context of the organisation shows as a big competence
in the sector, that is why a risk-based thinking would help us to take preventive
actions and even provide us with opportunities.

2. MAIN PROPOSED PROBLEM AND TAKEN SOLUTION

The oil industry produces a residue called Alperujo after having extracted all the
possible olive oil. This residue used to be thrown to rivers and lakes in the past but now
due to environmental laws and the general concerning of the customers (external
context) it is not possible anymore.

A quality requirement has been set in policy of the company in order to improve its
image in terms of standing out over the competence: The emissions of the whole
process have to be reduced by 50%. To do so, the company has explored several
options and they decided to produce pellets. Although the emit CO2 when they are
burnt, it prevents consumers from burning fossil fuels, which have higher CO 2 factors
associated.

3. APPLICATION OF THE CONCEPTS STUDIED TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM

Elements of the process:

 Source of inputs: The customers want a greener supply chain (interested

part) and Top management wants to satisfy them (customer focus).
 Inputs: Alperujo as a resource.
 Activities: Alperujo will be dried and pelletise.
 Output: reduction of the total emissions of the process and pellets as a by-
product.
 Receivers of the outputs: former customers of the company and potential
buyers of pellets (maintain and increase the interested parts).

In every step of the will be controls and check points to monitor and measure
performance.

The company applied the PDCA cycle to introduce the new changes:

 Plan: They define the objective of reducing the emissions. The resources
needed to generate and deliver the objective are already in the company
(alperujo) or easy and cheap to purchase (dryer and pelletiser). The risks of
these improvement are very low as there is a huge market for pellets, the
technology is easy to apply and it has been proven its profitability within the
 same field. The opportunities are enormous as the objective is achieved while
increasing de benefits of the company and improving the brand image.
 Do: The machinery is purchased and after a short start up period the new
process is put together with the old one.
 Check: the of Alperujo is monitored before it is processed to measure its
humidity, in order to apply the proper dry temperature to it. After the drying, the
humidity is measured again to ensure that the product obtained have the
properties required to produce pellets.
 Act: As sometimes the Alperujo does not reach the drying required conditions, a
recirculating belt had been added to the process to redry the Alperujo
(improvement of the performance).

4. ACHIEVEMENTS
The company has been able to reach the objective communicated by Top
management and has been able to improve its image, so they could maintain their
customers and attract new ones (retain and increase interested parts). The new
product lets the company diversify their income and increase the benefits.
This initiative showed the leadership of each level by letting the workers propose
solutions to current problems (communication and culture of trust) and support of
Top management.
Planning changes worked out so it proves the effectiveness of the quality
management system.

5. BIBLIOGRAPHIC REFERENCES
[1] Spanish standard UNE-EN ISO 9000:2015. Quality management systems: Requirements. ISO
9001:2015 (2015) AENOR.
[2] https://smarcangel.es/

6. GROUP MEMBERS
Lourdes Fernández Píriz - lourdesfpiriz@gmail.com 
Teresa Linares Serrano - marlinser@alum.us.es 
Juan Antonio Camargo Molina - juanancamargomolina@gmail.com 
Héctor López Pérez - hectorlope1999@gmail.com 
Alex Mattsson - alemat@alum.us.es

7. WORK CONTRIBUTED BY EACH STUDENT

This document has been produced and drafted jointly by the five members of the group
through a collaborative document that can be edited in real time by all the participants, as well
as a meeting in which each member contributed with their perception of the different
knowledge acquired throughout the theoretical lessons regarding this topic.