The Psychology of Quality and More

A Toolbook for Quality Improvement and Problem Solving (contents)

Flow Process Chart: Examples

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When to use it | How to understand it | Example | How to use it | Practical variations

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Example

When a luxury biscuit manufacturer started rewarding people for improving their own processes, the people on the baking line decided to see how they could improve their process. They started in the less contentious area of materials process flow, charting how the biscuit was made, as in the illustration.

They noticed from this chart that the rejection rate of baked biscuits was very high. An easy improvement was to add an inspection just after the biscuits were molded, as wet mix could simply be returned to the molder. This resulted in a significant reduction in a previously high reject rate of baked biscuits. In a later improvement, the mixing and molding processes were improved to reduce the rejection rate further.

Fig. 1. Example Flow Process Chart

Other examples

• A hospital surgical team uses Two-handed Flow Process Charts to analyze and help improve the efficiency of key surgical operations.
• A fork-lift driver in a builder's merchant draws a Flow Process Chart of his offloading procedure. As a result, he reduces several wait and transport times.
• A sewing team in a fashion accessory manufacturer uses a Flow Process Chart to understand and improve the shoulder-bag assembly process. They supplement this by making video recordings of both the fastest and most accurate sewing machine operators, and including the best elements of each in a separate sewing chart. The resultant charts are used in training new operators.

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