...The Deming Cycle By Paul Arveson W. Edwards Deming in the 1950's proposed that business processes should be analyzed and measured to identify sources of variations that cause products to deviate from customer requirements. He recommended that business processes be placed in a continuous feedback loop so that managers can identify and change the parts of the process that need improvements. As a teacher, Deming created a (rather oversimplified) diagram to illustrate this continuous process, commonly known as the PDCA cycle for Plan, Do, Check, Act*: * PLAN: Design or revise business process components to improve results * DO: Implement the plan and measure its performance * CHECK: Assess the measurements and report the results to decision makers * ACT: Decide on changes needed to improve the process Deming's PDCA cycle can be illustrated as follows: Deming's focus was on industrial production processes, and the level of improvements he sought were on the level of production. In the modern post-industrial company, these kinds of improvements are still needed but the real performance drivers often occur on the level of business strategy. Strategic deployment is another process, but it has relatively longer-term variations because large companies cannot change as rapidly as small business units. Still, strategic initiatives can and should be placed in a feedback loop, complete with measurements and planning linked in a PDCA cycle. To illustrate the relationship...
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...ITALY COUNTRY BRIEFING updated at May 2009 Forecast May 26th 2009 From the Economist Intelligence Unit Source: Country Forecast | | | | Outlook for 2009-10 • Italy's right-of-centre coalition government, led by Silvio Berlusconi, faces a major challenge to limit the impact of the global crisis on Italy's rapidly deteriorating economy and keep its fragile public finances under control. • Government cohesion will be hindered by divisions in the ruling coalition, but the Economist Intelligence Unit expects it to remain in office. Mr Berlusconi has a comfortable parliamentary majority and the centre-left is in disarray. • GDP contracted by 1% in 2008. Our baseline forecast is that it will contract by a further 4.6% in 2009 and by 0.6% in 2010. • The fiscal deficit is forecast to rise from 2.7% of GDP in 2008 to 5-5.5% of GDP in 2009-10. The public debt/GDP ratio is expected to be about 120% by the end of 2010, up from 105.8% in 2008. • Much larger deficits cannot be ruled out as our forecast assumes that the minister of the economy, Giulio Tremonti, will resist pressure for tax cuts to boost the economy and interest rates do not rise sharply. • Inflation (EU harmonised measure) will average 0.6% in 2009 and 0.9% in 2010, well down on 3.5% in 2008, reflecting weak demand and lower commodity prices. Monthly review •...
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