Apologies for being a bit mischievous Wallace.
We also had the Continual V's Continuous Improvement debate on the forums recently along with the ‘'Correction' 'Corrective Action' and 'Preventive Action''debate. It's a bit of fun (I think) and it does get the grey matter working, so why not…let's have the Check V's Study debate.
The PDCA (Plan Do Check Act) concept was first discussed by Shewhart in his 1939 book, Statistical Method from the Viewpoint of Quality Control although it was Shewart's protégé Deming who encouraged a systematic approach to problem solving and promoted the now widely recognised four step process for continual improvement. Or to put it another way he nicked the idea off his boss, massaged it a bit, marketed it to great effect thus making it his own, and the rest is history as they say.
Deming referred to it as the PDSA Cycle (Plan Do Study Act) or the Shewhart Cycle. The Japanese call it the Deming Cycle. Others call it the PDCA Cycle (Plan Do Check Act) or the Deming Wheel.
So is there a real difference between ‘Check' and ‘Study'? Or is it just semantics?
Dictionary definitions:
Check:The act or an instance of inspecting or testing, as for accuracy or quality.
Study:The pursuit of knowledge, as by reading, observation, or research.
In which case I'd say yes there is a difference, what do you think?
Do you use the model? If so, do you check or study?
Regards,
Simon