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20.10

Plan-Do-Check-Act
The quality management system structure is now viewed as a series of processes versus
the 20 required elements as described in ISO 9001:1994. The process-based structure is 
based on the "Plan-Do-Check-Act" improvement cycle used in ISO 14000 standards.

Plan
First, start with a plan. Develop assumptions about the desired outcome and determine 
what resources will be needed, how they will be applied, and ensure that the plan is 
feasible. Make sure you have "measurable goals" or "effectiveness criteria" so others 
will know when the goal has been acheived.

Do
Then implement the plan. Deploy the resources and execute the plan. 

Check
Evaluate the results. Every good plan must have built-in checkpoints or effectiveness 
criteria to ensure that the results are as planned. If the results are NOT as planned 
then STOP and fix the plan. 

Act
Communicate the "lessons learned". Act on the data gathered from the "check" phase
and go back to the first step and update the plan with this new information to ensure 
that you are moving forward as planned. Most importantly, communicate the information
to others to improve the process. 

This process-based structure uses an improvement cycle to ensure that outcomes are as 
planned or else the trajectory is adjusted so that you will eventually reach the
desired outcome. It sounds simple but how many times does the lack of time drive the 
process and the result becomes... READY - FIRE! - AIM... 

The ISO process is designed so that you "say what you are going to do" and then
you "do what you said".