Deming Wheel: What is it and how does it contribute to your company?

Companies in their search to position themselves in an increasingly competitive market are implementing process management methodologies aimed at improving their productivity. Among these, the Deming Wheel stands out, a model of continuous quality improvement that consists of a logical sequence of four key stages: Plan, Do, Study and Act.

<<< Continuous improvement: Have your processes improved in the last 5 years? >>>

Also known as the "spiral of continuous improvement or PDCA", the Deming Wheel is a planning and optimization process designed so that companies that use it can constantly increase their quality standards to be more productive and efficient.

In this way, putting it into operation can be very useful for a company's teams to improve their performance and increase productivity, since all the work and effort are focused on achieving a series of specific objectives.

<<< Complete guide: statistical process control on the assembly line >>>

Deming was the main promoter of the cycle of continuous improvement, but it was the prominent statistician Walter A. Shewhart who considered it as an elementary process in any field of activity to ensure the continuous improvement of these activities. In the 1920s, Shewhart introduced a model consisting of Plan, Do, See, which can be considered one of the most important early-stage process improvement perspectives. Deming saw his cycle as the natural continuation of this model.

Deming's goal was to reapply the scientific method to business processes, and he has left us with two main variants of his thinking: PDSA and PDCA. However, his purpose was not only to improve processes but also business results in general.

In this article, we tell you what the Deming Wheel is about and how implementing it can help you in your company.

What is the Deming Wheel?

Deming's Wheel or Circle consists of a four-step system whose objective is to improve the company's competitiveness. Its main characteristic is that it is cyclical so that each one of the steps feeds the next one, the following one, and so on. Its stages are the following:

• Plan: During the first stage, you will have to analyze the state of the company and its needs. This will allow you to define a series of objectives, as well as the actions that will help you achieve them. You will also need to determine how you are going to assess whether or not those goals have been achieved.
  
  
• Do: Once you have detailed the activities that should lead you to meet the objectives, that is when the true process of continuous improvement begins. Here you must implement a defined plan following the guidelines that you have established in phase one.

• Check: After you have started the machinery, you need to see if you were able to move in the right direction. To make your evaluations, you will only have to follow the evaluation system that you have defined in the first phase. The main thing is to determine the degree of compliance with the objectives and identify which are the most effective actions.

• Act: In this last phase, you must study the results of the control to prepare reports and comparisons. All the documentation you generate during this phase will help you create the next plan since the process starts again after making the corresponding adjustments.

How does the Deming Wheel contribute to the continuous improvement of your company?

If you want to apply the spiral of continuous improvement to your processes, you will need to make a small effort and make your collaborators aware of its importance and effectiveness. Completing the first cycle is the most expensive part of the process, but once this is done, you will only have to go through the loop.

In this way, the first thing that your workers will have to do is work meticulously on planning, which will require the development of different types of actions, be it a market analysis, brainstorming, or diagrams, among others. Remember that motivation is essential and that, although this may seem overwhelming to your team, this phase will lay the foundations on which the quality systems will be built.

Similarly, the third phase will also be somewhat tedious; therefore, you will need to encourage your staff members as they will have to produce a great deal of documentation and analyze it using Ishikawa and Pareto charts, checklists, and other evaluation tools.

<<< Process design: 5 steps to increase the productivity of your area>>>

The last phase will require your employees to be more creative and work as a team. Therefore, group dynamics will be essential. In this sense, you can organize team-building activities to guarantee the success of your workers. Likewise, promoting Design Thinking is also a very successful option.

The implementation of the Deming Wheel in your company can be extremely useful. However, since it requires effort, you must promote and make your employees aware of its importance, and let them know that its implementation will have very positive consequences for the company.