Five Rise Consultancy

Creating and maintaining an ISO management system sometimes feels like a bit of a hamster wheel. Nobody likes burning energy on a relentless hamster wheel…

Thankfully, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) provides a framework to turn that hamster wheel into a cycle, split into stages, with clear philosophies of action for each stage.

This is called the Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle (or Deming cycle, as it is sometimes known).

The PDCA cycle acts as an operational backbone for organizations of all types. It is key to a successful ISO compliant management system, with each stage of the cycle linking to specific sections and clauses of the standards. In this article we will explore how the PDCA cycle relates to ISO 9001 (quality), ISO 14001 (environment) and ISO 45001 (health and safety).

PLAN (ISO Sections 4, 5, 6, 7)

This is where the magic begins. By magic I mean paperwork.

Before you jump into action you need a solid plan. Here, you figure out what you want to achieve, how you’re going to achieve it, and what could go wrong (so you can look smug later when it doesn’t).

You can link this process to ISO’s requirements. Sections 4-7 of the ISO standards link to the ‘plan’ cycle, and for all three ISOs (9001, 14001, 45001) requirements include, but are not limited to:

• Establishing and understanding your organizational context, both internal and external, with consideration of any interested parties (or stakeholders).
• Identifying the risks and opportunities and subsequent actions based on your organizational context.
• Defining your policy – make sure to include all the wording required by the standard!
• Setting specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-based objectives. You get no reward for setting yourself hundreds of these, by the way – stick to an achievable number of objectives. Where feasible, it’s a good idea to create some objective key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure your objectives.

If you’re planning for an ISO 14001 environmental management system, you’ll also need to consider significant environmental aspects of your organization’s operations and associated actions to reduce their impact. Establishing key performance indicators can, again, be useful here.

And if you’re planning for both / either an ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 environmental / health and safety management system, you’ll need to create a legal register to understand all legislative requirements relevant to your operations. From these, you’ll determine what actions are required to ensure you comply.

DO (ISO Section 8)

The DO phase is the implementation part where you take the beautiful, comprehensive plan you developed and put it into motion. This involves providing resources, training people and managing the day-to-day operations.

So, what does the DO typically look like for each standard?

For ISO 9001 (Quality) the DO is controlling processes for producing and delivering your goods/services. It’s about ensuring consistency so your customers don’t get a perfect widget one day and a soggy biscuit the next.

For ISO 14001 (Environmental) the DO is implementing operational controls to manage your significant environmental aspects (e.g., waste, emissions, resource use). Think back to the planning you conducted around your significant environmental aspects and give priority to those most environmentally risky elements.

For ISO 45001 (OH&S) the DO is providing training, controlling hazards, and ensuring emergency preparedness. Basically, making sure everyone goes home with the same number of limbs they arrived with.

CHECK (ISO Section 9)

You’ve done the work, now it’s time to measure the results. The CHECK phase is all about monitoring, measuring, analyzing and evaluating the performance against your objectives and requirements.

This often involves internal audits – your organization’s annual (or even monthly) “pop quiz.” They’re a structured, systematic review to ensure your management system isn’t just a binder collecting dust but is actually working. You can use someone internally to conduct these or hire a third party. Internal audit support is something we provide, click here for an instant quote.

You also want to track the key performance indicators (KPIs) you set in the PLAN phase. Are you hitting your targets?

And there’s also the management review. All those involved in managing the management system – including top management – must come together and review the whole system’s performance. There’s some very specific things you must cover in the management review, and these are clearly outlined in clause 9.3. The wording of the clause acts almost as an agenda for your management review – simply go point-by-point if you’re stuck on how to organize the meeting.

ACT (ISO Section 10)

If you found something in the CHECK phase that was less than perfect (which you always will, because that’s how improvement works!), the ACT phase is where you take corrective action.

Document your nonconformities and document what actions you are taking to address these. Here, we make an important distinction between ‘correction’ and ‘corrective action.’ A correction is a one-time fix to a particular issue; corrective action is a long-term systemic fix to ensure nonconformities of a similar nature don’t arise again.

For instance, say you make doors. How exciting! But oh dear, you sold someone a door too big because the dimension figure wasn’t communicated with a unit of measurement. Sales wrote on the brief “200” meaning “200cm,” but the installer read “200” as “200 inches.” That’s a very big door!

The correction? Send the customer another door that’s the right size. And provide a grovelling apology so they don’t hate you. The corrective action? From now on, include the unit of measurement on the brief.

SIMPLE AS THAT!

Boom, you’ve acted. You’ve fixed the mistakes, you’ve altered the system and you’re better equipped to plan further revisions to the management system. This closes the loop and starts the cycle again at a higher level of performance. Continual improvement 101!

The beauty of the PDCA cycle is its universality. It doesn’t matter if you’re managing quality (9001), aiming for a greener footprint (14001) or keeping your staff safe (45001); the process is more-or-less identical. Embrace the cycle!

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