Design a Flowchart for a Process
In order to design a flowchart for a process, one has to understand what a flowchart and a process is and how do they apply to a business or to an individual. A process is any part of an organization that takes inputs and transforms them into output with the goal of creating greater value than the original inputs (Chase, Jacobs, & Aquilano, 2006). Processes can significantly impact the performance of a business and improve and its competitiveness. The process that I perform daily but would like to do more efficiently and spend less time doing is getting dressed for work and other affairs. This can be a stumbling block for me in my attempts to depart and arrive at my destination on time. By examining this process, I seek ways to reduce the time it takes to get dressed, which in turn reduces the stress of being late, while allowing time to do other productive things.
The second part of the design is a flowchart. Flowcharts are diagrams that communicate to others, how steps in a process work and fit together. It is like a snapshot of a business processes, or in this case, what I do every day to get dressed. Moreover, flowcharts can be used to define and analyze processes, in addition to helping businesses and people standardize or find areas of improvement within a process (Mind Tools, January 2012).
Factors Affecting the Process Design
Deciding what to wear and getting dressed for work is a process that comprises my daily routine. Sometimes the process is easy and at other times it can be a challenging. I have identified steps in the process and constructed a flowchart to display factors that can affect this process. The flowchart will also be used to identify the time it takes to get dressed and what can be done to make the process more efficient.
1. What will I wear? (A dress, a suit, pants/skirt and blouse)
2. Do I pick out my clothes at night or do I pick them out in the morning?
3. What is my mood/how do I want to feel?
4. What is happening today?
5. What are the weather conditions
All of the above factors can affect the process due to their impact on the amount of time needed to get dress and depart. Other factor that has less of an affect includes:
1. Do make up
2. Jewelry to wear
3. Color of shoes
Metric to Measure the Process
Metrics will tell if progress is being made toward improvements in the process or it can help project the impact of a proposed change in the process. The metric that will be used to measure the process is time in minutes. A log will be kept to track how long it takes to get dressed. The times will be compared and benchmarked. An analysis will be done to assess efficiency and measure the loss or gain in the process (Chase, Jacobs, & Aquilano, 2006).