Process Decision Program Chart (PDPC): Examples

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When to use it | How to understand it | Example | How to use it | Practical variations

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Example

A dress production team at a clothes manufacturer was improving the cutting-out process in order to minimize material wastage. They decided to use PDPC on the work breakdown structure to identify potential problems and ways of avoiding them.

As the most expensive element is the material itself, they defined a significant risk as, 'Anything that might cause the cut cloth to be ruined', and viable countermeasures as, 'Anything that will reduce the risk, and which costs less than 100 pieces of cloth' .

Fig. 1. PDPC example

The resulting PDPC is shown above. As a result of this, the cutting was tested on cheaper material, resulting in the material clamp being redesigned to prevent drag, a start notch provided for the cutter and the general area being inspected for sharp corners to minimize snag problems. The cutting operator was involved in the PDPC process and the subsequent tests, resulting in her fully understanding the process. The final cutting process thereafter ran very smoothly with very little error.

Other examples

• A structural engineering project manager uses it to help find problems in a plan for constructing a road bridge.
• A kitchen hygiene improvement team uses PDPC to check for possible areas where infection could come into contact with consumable foodstuffs. An individual sub-project is then spawned for all identified danger areas.
• A mailroom project to improve delivery times uses it to help check the proposed solution, checking in particular that it will not have any side-effects that might upset other processes.

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