- PDCA, sometimes called PDSA, the "Deming Wheel," or "Deming Cycle," was developed by renowned management consultant Dr William Edwards Deming in the 1950s.
- Deming himself called it the "Shewhart Cycle," as his model was based on an idea from his mentor, Walter Shewhart.
- Deming wanted to create a way of identifying what caused products to fail to meet customers' expectations.
- His solution helps businesses to develop hypotheses about what needs to change, and then test these in a continuous feedback loop.
- PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Act) is an iterative four-step methodology for continuous improvement of products/processes by following the four steps repeatedly
- Plan (Plan an activity/ task/ New process or form hypothesis)
- Do (implement the plan / Run experiments/ Do things)
- Check/Study (verify is expected results achieved? / Evaluate results)
- Act (Either continue or review plan / Refine the experiments)