Those people who make contact for the first time with the continuous improvement cycle or PHVA, consider it as something that arises from its inclusion in the 2000 version of ISO 9000.
We must remember that the PHVA was designed by Dr. Walter Shewhart back in the 1920s, but its widespread use and use is attributed to Dr. William E. Deming (Edwards is his mother's last name) for the improvement of the quality of Japan from the 50s.
The IOS whose best-known brand is "ISO" was founded in 1946, taking many of the CEI practices, but neither the concept of the norms of 87 nor those of 94 includes the concept of the continuous improvement cycle. What's more in the latest version of 9001 it is timidly presented as a note within the introductory clauses on the process-based approach and is not mentioned again nor in the continuous improvement clause (8.5.1) which is where it really should locate.
The PHVA is part of the Kaizen, the name that made Masaaki Imai popular, about the Japanese miracle of the 70s and in the American version of Armand Feingembaun's Total Quality Control TCQ.
The Total Quality Control (TQC) that begins to be minted from Kaouru Ishikawa, comes to us lately with the initials of the TQM, where "management" translates as "management" by the Spanish influence in the ISO committees on the use of Spanish.
According to what people who were in Japan tell us for the approval of the 2000 standard, the Japanese objected to using the term PHVA in the standard, mainly because it is not structured under this cycle, which does happen with ISO 14001 for environmental management. In our opinion, clause 5.6 should be at the end of the rule to close the cycle. The vocabulary standard ISO 9000 does not mention the cycle, nor does ISO 9004, and this is a standard to improve efficiency through continuous improvement. Not even the Handbook for Small Bussiness as of June 2001, clarifies the use of such an important instrument. The Japanese were right.
For those of us who entered the famous "quality control circles" in the 1980s, we had as a precept the use of the Deming cycle, as it was known, with which surprising improvements in quality were achieved.
The flaws were in two aspects: the first, the TQC, was seen as a way of working and not as a way of managing (TQM), with which management distanced itself and contributed to its failure. On the other hand, despite the fact that the "standardization" model proposed by the JUSE recommended documenting the practices, in the West it does not gain strength until ISO 9000 appears.
The quality improvement process requires going around the PHVA cycle several times, which is represented as a set of circles going up a slope.The absence of documentation of the improvement, and the lack of a management system, causes entropy, causing the circle recedes, returning to the previous state. With ISO 9000, we have the wedge that was necessary for the improvement to be maintained, but what continues to be important is the continuous improvement process or Kaizen, be it incremental as the Japanese version proposes, or radical (reengineering) in the North American version, both through continuous use of the PHVA. I heard in the last quality forum, that with the certification, we forgot what we were managing.A great truth because very few results are known of great improvements in quality achieved from the implementation of ISO 9000.
Recalling Dr. Ishikawa's recommendations and relating them to ISO 9000 we have the following:
To plan:
- Identify products Identify customers Identify customer requirements (5.2) Translate customer requirements to specifications (7.1) Identify key process steps (flow chart) (7.5) Identify and select measurement parameters (8.1) Determine process capability (Cpk) (8.2.3, 8.2.4) Identify with whom to compare (benchmarks) (5.1 of ISO 9004)
Do
- Identify opportunities for improvement (8.5) Development of the pilot plan Implement the improvements
check
- Evaluate effectiveness (8.2, 8.5.2)
Act
- Institutionalize the improvement and / or go to step 9 (5.6)
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|
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| To plan | Establish the objectives and processes necessary to achieve
results in accordance with the client's requirements and the organization's policies |
| Do | Implement the processes |
| check | Track and measure processes and
products against product policies, objectives and requirements and report on results |
| Act | Take actions to continually improve
process performance |
We do not explain why, if we have known for several years, we have concentrated on obtaining a certification, forgetting that the problem is quality improvement.
Yves Van Nuland, Quality Manager for the Chemical Sector in Brussels, recommended the following:
"The practice of ISO 9000 in a company will be successful only when two conditions are met: (1) Full quality control must already exist or, failing that, must be introduced together with ISO 9000. (2) Management it must be absolutely committed to quality. (QP June 1994, p41) »
Joseph J. Klock, director of quality planning at AT&T, cautioned:
"The ISO 9000 series sets a minimum standard for AT&T providers. Future programs will use Malcolm Baldridge Award criteria to achieve even higher standards of excellence ”(QP, June 1990, p47).
The continuous use of PHVA provides a solution that really allows us to maintain the competitiveness of our products and services, in which Dr. Deming bequeathed to us with his "Chain Reaction":
"Improve quality, reduce costs, improve productivity, reduce prices, increase market share, company survival, provide new jobs, increase profitability."
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We leave you below with a short video in which the PHVA Cycle and how to implement it are explained very clearly.
