Speaking of Precision Blog

Speaking of Precision

Speaking of Precision is a knowledge preservation and thought leadership blog covering the precision machining industry, its materials and services. With over 36 years of hands on experience in steelmaking, manufacturing, quality, and management, Miles Free (Milo) Director of Industry Research and Technology at PMPA helps answer "How?" "With what?" and occasionally "Really?"

Previous in Blog: Buy American: What Does That Mean?   Next in Blog: Machining for Hobbyists: Getting Started
Close
Close
Close
Rate Comments: Nested

Plan Do Study Adjust--The Engine of Continuous Improvement

Posted July 21, 2015 12:00 AM by Milo

Continuous improvement is of necessity in the very DNA of our shops.

Continuous improvement is in our DNA

In ISO 9000:2000 Section 8.5.1 read :

The organization shall continually improve the effectiveness of the quality management system through the use of the quality policy, quality objectives, audit results, analysis of data, corrective and preventive action, and management review.

In TS16949:2009 it read:

8.5.1.1 Continual Improvement of the Organization

The organization must define a process for continual improvement .

8.5.1.2 Manufacturing Process Improvement

Manufacturing process improvement must continually focus on control and reduction of variation in product characteristics and manufacturing process parameters.

The standard defined continual improvement as : "recurring activity to increase the ability to fulfill requirements."

Recurring activity. To me that means cycle.

It is not a wheel, PDSA is a continuous cycle of cycles!

Karen Martin shared this graphical representation of PDSA in her book The Outstanding Organization.

Plan. Do. Study. Adjust.

This is the process of continuous (continual) improvement.

Plan. Do. Study. Adjust.

It's what we do.

If this sounds familiar, it is because I first wrote about this here Karen Martin

DNA Photocredit


Editor's Note: CR4 would like to thank Milo for sharing this blog entry, which you can also read here.

Register to Reply

Interested in this topic? By joining CR4 you can "subscribe" to
this discussion and receive notification when new comments are added.
Guru
Hobbies - Musician - New Member

Join Date: Feb 2012
Posts: 523
Good Answers: 17
#1

Re: Plan Do Study Adjust--The Engine of Continuous Improvement

07/24/2015 4:17 PM

ISO9001:2015 is due for release in September. Recently I was WEB surfing to try to acquaint myself with changes. One change is the purposeful organization of the sections to follow the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle. The standard will now comprise 10 major sections instead of 8. Sections 1-6 represent Plan. Section 7 represents Do. Section 8 represents Check. Sections 9-10 represent Act.

I realize I used the older terminology, but it is the same message. Improvement involves a never-ending cycle of intelligent research and planning, execution of the plan, analysis to demonstrate effectiveness, making corrections and adjustments based on the analysis, rinse and repeat.

Register to Reply
Register to Reply

Previous in Blog: Buy American: What Does That Mean?   Next in Blog: Machining for Hobbyists: Getting Started

Advertisement