Operations and Logistics

Using Flow Diagrams to Streamline Processes within Companies.

Situations arise where managers need to facilitate the streamlining of various departmental processes. This creates efficiencies in the systems and therefore improved service delivery.

The analysis of these situations can be approached using the following framework:

1. Identification of all the steps in each process and then the construction of a Process Flow Diagram depicting which steps are accomplished before others and which can be done in a parallel fashion. This approach assists the project team to gain a complete understanding of the process, as a prerequisite to its subsequent analysis and improvement.
2. Construction of optimal Process Flow Diagrams to represent the situations as the company would like them to ideally exist. Comparison of these diagrams with the first diagrams of the process as it presently operates gives an idea of the direction and magnitude of improvement possible.
3. The third stage is then to explore ways in which the processes can be improved through the identification of major issues and recommendations for action plans.

Particular areas that could be addressed include:

• Are the steps in the process in the most logical sequence?
• Are the capacities of each step balanced to the extent that system bottlenecks are avoided?
• How much flexibility is possible at each step?
• Can any of the steps be combined?
• Should any of the steps be performed in parallel?
• Who has responsibility for ensuring that the data is passed to the next stage?

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