Flow Chart

The Process Flow chart provides a visual representation of the steps in a process. Flow charts are also referred to as Process Mapping or Flow Diagrams. Constructing a flow chart is often one of the first activities of a process improvement effort, because of the following benefits:

Gives everyone a clear understanding of the process Helps to identify non-value-added operations Facilitates teamwork and communication Keeps everyone on the same page

There are many symbols used to construct a flow chart; the more common symbols are shown below:

If you have Microsoft Word or Excel, you can access a gallery or symbols in the Autoshapes function, together with a description of their use. The next step is to identify the process steps and link them together with direction arrows.

Following is an example of a very simple flow chart for the process of getting out of bed in the morning:

You can make a flowchart more useful by adding information beside the boxes. This flowchart gives a better description of the process when you know that the snooze bar gets hit three times, postponing the inevitable by five minutes each time.