PDCA and ISO 9001

0.3.2 Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle

PDCA stands for P-Plan; D-Do; C-Check; A-Act
The PDCA cycle can be applied to all processes and to the quality management system as a
whole.
The PDCA cycle can be briefly described as follows:
o Plan: establish the objectives of the system and its processes, and the resources
needed to deliver results in accordance with customers’ requirements and the
organization’s policies;
o Do: implement what was planned;
o Check: monitor and (where applicable) measure processes and the resulting products
and services against policies, objectives and requirements and report the results;
o Act: take actions to improve performance, as necessary.
PDCA is a tool for defining, managing and achieving continual improvement. PDCA was
popularized by Edward Deming, one of the fathers of modern quality control and assurance.
He referred to PDCA as the Shewhart Cycle, attributing it to Walter Shewhart. Some still now
refer to PDCA as the Deming Cycle. PDCA has its origins in the scientific thinking of
“Hypothesis- Experimentation- Evaluation”
The simplicity of PDCA masks its incredible usefulness in creating a continuous improvement
cycle Deming was known to prefer replacing the ‘Check’ with ‘Study’ Without overthinking
it, if you want to establish a system that is capable of continuously self-improving simply
follow the steps of planning it, doing (implementing) it, checking to obtain data and
information, act on the knowledge you gain from the data to begin re-improving the process.

(Continual) improvement is one of the bedrock principles of Quality management, hence the
ISO 9001 standard for quality management was developed after the model of PDCA.
This International Standard employs the process approach, which incorporates the Plan-Do-
Check-Act (PDCA) cycle and risk-based thinking.
The PDCA cycle enables an organization to ensure that its processes are adequately
resourced and managed, and that opportunities for improvement are determined and acted
on.