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By Robert Moskowitz
Finally, the processed information or material flows out of the business in many ways, including:
* Bank deposits of revenues.
* Payments to the landlord or mortgage holder and utilities.
* Purchase decisions, and payments to product vendors.
* Advertising and other external communications.
* Answers and services to customers and potential customers, product purchases, and deliveries to customers.
* Tax returns and tax payments, as well as required reports to regulators.
As you build up the flow chart picture of your business, put in timing data. For example, note how long it takes from the time a sales order is completed until it arrives at the manufacturing floor, or how long it takes to prepare and send out an invoice. This detail will be useful later, when you analyze the flow chart for bottle-necks, unnecessary delays, and other opportunities to speed up your organization's responsiveness.
It's also a good idea to organize the chart so information or material tends to enter at one side of the paper, flow across the page, and leave on the opposite side. This way, when information or material is bottle-necked or poorly routed through the organization, the potential problem area shows up more clearly on the flow chart.
Modern charting software, such as FlowCharting4 (Patton and Patton Software, Morgan Hill, CA) can be a big help. It allows you to quickly draw and place shapes anywhere on one or more pieces of paper that form a single "canvas," then connect these processes with lines showing how they are related to each other. Once you link the shapes with the adjoining lines, you can move each shape anywhere you want on the canvas and have the computer automatically redraw the connecting lines.
This allows you to start with a simple flow chart showing only the most basic operations in your business. Then you can gradually add complexity and sophistication to the automated drawing and have the computer take care of updating the overall chart.
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