Best Practices 101-PT 2

Process Analysis Terms

The following terms may be useful to an organization during the activity of process flowcharting, value stream mapping, and analysis.

  • Blocking: Occurs when the activities in a process stage must stop because there is no place to deposit the item just completed
  • Bottleneck: Occurs when the limited capacity of a process stage causes work to pile up or become unevenly distributed in the flow of a process
  • Cycle Time: Is the average time between completions of successive units exiting a process
  • Make-to-order: Only produced in response to an actual order that results in minimum inventory levels
  • Make-to-stock: Process produced to meet expected or forecasted demand, shipped from stock, and results in high inventory levels
  • Process: Any activity within an organization that converts inputs into outputs
  • Starving: Occurs when the activities in a process stage must stop because there is no incoming work
  • Takt time: Setting the pace of production to match actual demand Takt time = Available work time per day / daily total customer demand
  • Throughput Time: The time it takes a discrete unit to go from start to finish in a process
  • Utilization: The ratio of the time that a resource is actually utilized relative to the time that it is available for use

Process FlowchartingFlowchart

Process flowcharting is the use of a diagram to represent the major elements of a process; in other words, a picture of the process. There are many symbols used in process flowcharting, but the basic elements are tasks or operations, decision points, queue or storage, and directional process flow. The first step in many process improvement projects is to flowchart the process as it currently exists, which may not have any resemblance to company standard operating procedures (SOP). The realization that their SOPs do not reflect how the operation is really running is generally an “Ah-Ha!” moment for the company. Flowcharting also determines the parameters for process improvement since a process cannot be improved before it is understood. Although turning a process into a picture may sound very simple, it is an incredibly powerful tool to see what is really happening in a process. After a flowcharting session, the people actually doing the job are always amazed at the difference between how they perceive the process and what is really going on. A common result is a spaghetti diagram that highlights excessive travel, motion and redundancy. A picture truly is worth a thousand words.

As a working guideline, a flowchart should be used to: 1) Understand how a whole process works, 2) Identify the critical points, bottlenecks, or problem areas in a process, 3) See how the different steps in the process are related, or 4) Identify the “ideal” flow of a process.

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