Question

Share a time where an organization you worked with used a process improvement tool. What tool was used, what was the situation that warranted this work and what was the outcome. If you haven't worked with a process improvement tool, please discuss a situation where you felt like one of these tools would have come in handy.

Answer 1

PDCA or Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle can be used as an important quality improvement tool as it is a very simple yet quite potent method for the solution of different issues and properly managing the proposed changes. This can be used for evaluating the improvement methods at a relatively smaller scale before implementing any sort of change and working patterns in the organization. This method can be utilized for almost every type of business activities ranging from new product development to the effective management of the supply chain.

For example, an organisation is looking to improve its supplier evaluation method and look to implement the PDCA cycle in this exercise. First of all the firm has to develop a plan for the change in the supplier evaluation method and will look at the various methods can be used for this purpose. Once a plan is developed, now the firm will try to implement this proposed evaluation method at a smaller scale and evaluate the outcome from this implementation. Once the implementation and its evaluation provide the targeted results, it can be implemented completely in the organization. On the other hand, if the desired result are not obtained then again some changes will be applied to the original plan and the cycle will be repeated until the satisfactory method is developed.