Sean Hower wrote:
I've been playng around with the idea of using flowcharts instead of
numbered steps in documentation....
********************************************
Been doing this for years with excellent results. I present all process
flows as flow charts with three-piece boxes:
Top box: Who does it (department or title, never individuals' names)
Middle box: What happens
Bottom box: Related document(s) (forms, illustrations, work
instructions)
The process flow chart is an extremely elegant way to easily identify those
interdepartmental links between process points where bottlenecks can occur
and where the most effective process improvements can be realized.
For work instructions I include a flow chart as a "quick guide", along with
detailed listed steps. I'm aware that this breaks the Single Source rule,
but people learn in different ways and I'm dealing with an audience of
wildly varying education and ability. Because they're in the same document
it's easy enough for me to exercise the discipline to make sure that the
second presentation is updated whenever the first one is changed.
If the job is done by inexperienced people, I add a step-by-step guide with
photos. In our situation we're often running fast packaging machinery with
warm bodies from a temp agency, so the accuracy and detail of my work can
literally be saving fingers and hands if not lives. The flow chart and
photo guide are controlled as "support documents" (illustrations). At the
discretion of the area supervisor, uncontrolled copies can be laminated and
posted in the work area for quick reference -- but they have to be checked
every day against the master list of controlled documents to make sure that
they are current. This is not a big deal, just one more step on their daily
checklist.
We're still working on the culture change from "how do I know what to do? I
ask the guy next to me" to "I know what to do because it's in the
instructions". Like old age, this is not for the weak nor the timid.
Dori Green
Technical Writer, QMS Project
Associated Brands, Inc.
Medina, NY Facility
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