Excerpt

HOW IS A FLOWCHART USEFUL?

Flowcharts are valuable quality improvement tools. First of all, just the exercise of preparing a flowchart will help you understand your process better. It also gives you a quick picture of what happens next. But flowcharts are useful in many other ways.

Smoothing Out A Process You can draw a flowchart of the process as it actually exists. Then draw a flowchart of the process as it should exist. Examine the differences and identify what steps need to be taken to get "what exists" to what it "should be". You may find that you have redundant or unnecessary steps in the process as it exists. Or, you may find that key elements needed to produce a good quality product or result are missing.

The flowchart can give visibility to hidden glitches in a process, which sometimes are not visible to the people busily working the process. For example, we noted in our flowchart for processing a purchase order, that if the Budget and Finance Analyst didnt approve the purchase requisition, it was returned to the requester. Suppose the requester is the Production Supervisor and the purchase requisition is for a part for a machine that has broken down and production is severely hampered by the inoperable machine. Or perhaps, production is proceeding smoothly enough, but the Production Supervisor has located a new piece of equipment that will increase production 30% and thus increase profits. It becomes apparent that all purchase requisitions cant be returned to the requester with a No just because the cost exceeds $500. Another process is needed. Flowcharting the process identified a glitch (the need for another process).

Identification of a problem is the first step to solving it. In this case, a process for emergency procurement of parts or acquisition of equipment would raise less havoc with the finances of the business than having no process at all.

Feedback on How Things Are Going Supervisors or owners of small businesses sometimes get involved in everything to one degree or another. They may never get a chance to get a global view of how processes are working. The flowchart can be useful in giving feedback. If this is the case for you, try the following.

Draw a flowchart of your process. Ask yourself, what information do I need to have (feedback) that will tell me how my process is running? How do I know that everything is okay all the way along the line and how do I know if I'm headed for trouble. Examine your flowchart with these questions in mind and identify key areas on your flowchart that can be trouble spots or areas that affect the quality of your work process. These points will be your quality indicator points.

The identification of indicators is dependent on the kind of work process you are trying to improve. Is this a process that produces a product? A product of course can be a manufactured product. It can also be a report, or a design drawing, or a budget, to name just a few examples.

If you are producing a product, determine the key elements that affect the quality of that product. Is it the quality and precision of the materials? Is it the tools and equipment used to produce the product? Is it the training of the people involved? Is it the availability of the labeling and packaging? Does it pertain to the product's useful shelf life?

Maybe your work process is one that provides a service. If so, what elements influence the quality of that service? Is it time it takes to service an order or complete a task? Is it delivery time? Does it have something to do with tracking a unique customer request through the process? Does it have something to do with appearance?

After you have a list of those characteristics that directly affect the quality of your work process, you can then develop measures to identify failures at each of these points and this will help you determine your best action to correct the problem.

For example, a measurement point may be a count of the number of times defective material is received, if the work produces a product, or it may be a determination of the amount of time it takes to service a customer at a service counter, if the process is a service process.

The key to this quality improvement method is in examining your flowchart with your list of quality indicators and determining where to set up the measurement points to collect the data you need. After reviewing the data, the actions required to correct the problem will become apparent.