What is the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle in quality management?

The Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle, also called the Deming cycle or PDCA, is a continuous improvement framework. Plan establishes objectives, identifies problems, and develops improvement strategies. Do implements the planned changes on a small scale. Check measures and evaluates the results against the expected outcomes. Act either standardizes the improvement if successful or revises the approach and repeats the cycle if not. PDCA emphasizes that quality improvement is an ongoing, iterative process rather than a one-time effort.