Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle and Feedback Loops

Florida Continuous Improvement Model (2005). Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Retrieved February 23, 2014, from http://prodev.dadeschools.net/CIM/cim.asp#plan

Edwards Deming created an oversimplified diagram to illustrate the continuous process of the Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) cycle, which was originally developed by Welter Shewhart. He recommended that business process should be placed in a continuous feedback loop so that leaders and managers can identify and improve the process over time (Arveson, 2014). The following are the definition of Plan, Do, Check, Act:

• Plan: design or revise business process components to improve results
• Do: implement the process or plan and measure the performance
• Check: assess the measurements and record to result for further decision making
• Act: decide on what needs to be changed in order to make improvements to the process

         When Deming created the PDCA cycle, he was focused on the industrial production processes; however, the PDCA cycle can still applies and can even be used across industries. It is not limited to manufacturing industry only. With modification, the cycle is applicable for variety of organizations that involves quality, which essential is about 99.9 percent of the organizations out there. For example, the PDCA cycle are relevant for factories, firms, schools, hospitals, universities, research institutes, banks, and government offices, etc.

“The role of the CFO is now much more about transforming the company; it’s much more about change and, as such, it needs to be much more about how you create decision making processes rather than the decision making itself” (Heffes, 2011).

Reference

Arveson, P. (2014). The Deming Cycle. Balance Scorecard Institute. Retrieved from 

         http://balancedscorecard.org/?TabId=112

Heffes, E. M. (2011). CFO On Risk Management: Plan, Do, Check, Act. Financial 

         Executive, 27(3), 40-45.