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The flow process chart is a graphical and symbolic representation of the activities performed on the work piece during the operation in industrial engineering.
online version
* Operation: to change the physical or chemical characteristics of the material. * Inspection: to check the quality or the quantity of the material. * Move: transporting the material from one place to another. * Delay: when material cannot go to the next activity. * Storage: when the material is kept in a safe location.
The flow process chart is a graphical and symbolic representation of the activities performed on the work piece during the operation in industrial engineering.
History
The first structured method for documenting process flow, e.g., in flow shop scheduling, the flow process chart, was introduced by Frank andLillian Gilbreth
Lillian Evelyn Gilbreth (; May 24, 1878 – January 2, 1972) was an American psychologist, industrial engineer, consultant, and educator who was an early pioneer in applying psychology to time-and-motion studies. She was described in the 1940s ...
to members of ASME
The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is an American professional association that, in its own words, "promotes the art, science, and practice of multidisciplinary engineering and allied sciences around the globe" via " continuing ...
in 1921 as the presentation "Process Charts, First Steps in Finding the One Best Way to Do Work". The Gilbreths' tools quickly found their way into industrial engineering
Industrial engineering is an engineering profession that is concerned with the optimization of complex processes, systems, or organizations by developing, improving and implementing integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information an ...
curricula.
In the early 1930s, an industrial engineer, Allan H. Mogensen Allan Herbert Mogensen, known as Mogy, (May 12, 1901 - March 1989) was an American industrial engineer, and industry consultant, and an authority in the field of work simplification and office management. He is noted for popularizing flowcharts in t ...
, began training business people in the use of some of the tools of industrial engineering at his Work Simplification Conferences in Lake Placid, New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
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Film and television
* '' ...
. A 1944 graduate of Mogensen's class, Art Spinanger
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas.
There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...
, took the tools back to Procter and Gamble
The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. It specializes in a wide range of personal health/consumer hea ...
, where he developed their Deliberate Methods Change Program. Another 1944 graduate, Ben S. Graham, Director of Formcraft Engineering at Standard Register Corporation, adapted the flow process chart to information processing with his development of the multi-flow process chart to display multiple documents and their relationships.
Symbols
In 1947, ASME adopted the following symbol set derived from Gilbreth's original work as the ASME Standard for Process Charts.American Society of Mechanical Engineers (1947) ''ASME standard; operation and flow process charts''. New York, 1947.online version
* Operation: to change the physical or chemical characteristics of the material. * Inspection: to check the quality or the quantity of the material. * Move: transporting the material from one place to another. * Delay: when material cannot go to the next activity. * Storage: when the material is kept in a safe location.
When to use it
* It is used when observing a physical process, to record actions as they happen, and thus get an accurate description of the process. * It is used when analyzing the steps in a process, to help identify and eliminatewaste
Waste (or wastes) are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product, by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor economic value. A waste pr ...
—thus, it is a tool for efficiency planning.
* It is used when the process is mostly sequential, containing few decisions.
See also
* Business process mapping * Control flow diagram *Data flow diagram
A data-flow diagram is a way of representing a flow of data through a process or a system (usually an information system). The DFD also provides information about the outputs and inputs of each entity and the process itself. A data-flow diagram ha ...
* Flowchart
A flowchart is a type of diagram that represents a workflow or process. A flowchart can also be defined as a diagrammatic representation of an algorithm, a step-by-step approach to solving a task.
The flowchart shows the steps as boxes of va ...
* Functional flow block diagram
A functional flow block diagram (FFBD) is a multi-tier, time-sequenced, step-by-step flow diagram of a system’s functional flow. The term "functional" in this context is different from its use in functional programming or in mathematics, where ...
* Workflow
A workflow consists of an orchestrated and repeatable pattern of activity, enabled by the systematic organization of resources into processes that transform materials, provide services, or process information. It can be depicted as a sequence ...
References
External links
{{commonscat, Flow process charts Industrial engineering Charts