Find out how the PDCA and PDCL cycles work and how they can be applied in your company to generate more results
The PDCA cycle (planning, execution, verification of results and corrective action) is a widely used method for companies to plan and carry out actions and process improvements. In addition to the planned achievements, this method brings the creation of knowledge as an indirect result, since completing its entire cycle takes you through all the stages of the knowledge spiral.
Paulo Orti, strategic management consultant at Totem Talentos explains that in the planning phase, for example, various meetings and brainstormings are held, which results in socialization. In the execution stage, various documents and procedures are created to put all the planning into practice, so that tacit knowledge is transformed into explicit knowledge, i.e. externalization, among other phases of this process.
The MEG, the management model of the PNQ (National Quality Award), of the FNQ (2014), recommends the use of an evolution of this methodology called PDCL (Plan, Do Check and Learn), which recommends that the Councils try to define what the organization has learned from the PDCAs in a particular area and incorporate good practices into the processes of the entire company. "What has been learned from the PDCAs? What can be incorporated as a process for the whole company or for each area? With questions like these, the method makes it possible to constantly improve and encourage employees to do better every day and review their practices naturally and confidently," says Orti.
The consultant explains that PDCL is a methodology used to feed new learning back into the system in order to promote continuous improvement, based on what has actually been learned in each PDCA carried out, as can be seen in the figure. Generally speaking, the PDCA and PDCL tools work very closely together, very similarly," says Orti.
Continuous learning is the main objective of PDCL, with previous experience always being used as a basis for new planning, which generates organizational growth through the knowledge generated, stored and reapplied.
The two tools, PDCA and PDCL , contribute to improving the organization's internal processes and the PDCA phases individually. Although they are similar, the two methods have objectives that are evaluated and validated at different organizational levels. For example, "P" (definition of practices and standards) is a stage conducted at the strategic level, when top management establishes organizational standards and targets to be achieved, and it is therefore valid to relate this phase to the strategies defined in the BSC. Following the diagram, when we look at the "Management Practices" module, we find a new PDCA cycle, which is understood to be related to the management level, where a departmental strategy will be created so that the sector in question can achieve a goal previously set by the strategic level. Sequentially, there will be the stages of execution, verification and action, still at management level. The "Evaluation" module deals with analyzing whether the PDCA carried out in the sector was valid and what its positive and negative points were. Finally, the part of investing in the effective "Improvement" of the process is linked to "L", which consists of bringing together the various sectors and all their PDCAs carried out, in order to reflect on the experiences acquired, the gains absorbed, in short, to reflect on the learning that has been extracted and which can be used to analyze new actions to be taken and, even more so, to feed back into the PDCA cycle. Knowledge ManagementIn this way, it is possible to preserve learning, to internalize experiences so that this intellectual capital can be preserved in a structured way that guarantees that the organization can reapply this knowledge to new opportunities or needs, regardless of who will take on the various positions in the company.
"With careful management and the use of computerized tools, such as the Stratec's Strategic Management software"The top management of a company can create management groups or committees with people responsible in the organization, who use the existing controls of the PDCAs to evolve in understanding and learning for the whole organization," says Orti.
The software Strategy Management is based on the PDCA and therefore guarantees that all the steps are carried out correctly because, with the systematized method, no step can be skipped.
Read also the article Automated PDCA.
*This article was produced with the theoretical support of Mr. Paulo Orti, from Totem Talentos.
Sources:
FNQ - National Quality Foundation. Available at: http://www.fnq.org.br/. Accessed on February 14, 2014.
NONAKA, Ikujiro, TAKEUCHI, Hirotaka. Knowledge creation in the company. Rio de Janeiro: Campus, 1997.
Oliveira F. C. and Machado, R. S. Construction of a Theoretical Model of the Relationship between Knowledge Management, PDCA AND PDCL. Capstone of the Production Engineering Course at FAE. Curitiba. 2010
WERKEMA, M. C. C. Basic Statistical Tools for Process Management. Belo Horizonte: Christiano Ottoni Foundation, UFMG Engineering School, 1995.
