The flow process chart is a graphical and symbolic representation of the activities performed on the work piece during the operation in industrial engineering. [1]
The flow process chart is a graphical and symbolic representation of the activities performed on the work piece during the operation in industrial engineering. [1]
The first structured method for documenting process flow, e.g., in flow shop scheduling, the flow process chart, was introduced by Frank and Lillian Gilbreth to members of ASME in 1921 as the presentation "Process Charts, First Steps in Finding the One Best Way to Do Work". [2] The Gilbreths' tools quickly found their way into industrial engineering curricula. [3]
In the early 1930s, an industrial engineer, Allan H. Mogensen, began training business people in the use of some of the tools of industrial engineering at his Work Simplification Conferences in Lake Placid, New York. A 1944 graduate of Mogensen's class, Art Spinanger, took the tools back to Procter and Gamble, where he developed their Deliberate Methods Change Program. Another 1944 graduate, Ben S. Graham, Director of Formcraft Engineering at Standard Register Corporation, adapted the flow process chart to information processing with his development of the multi-flow process chart to display multiple documents and their relationships. In 1947, ASME adopted a symbol set derived from the Gilbreths' original work as the ASME Standard for Process Charts. [4]
| Symbol | Letter | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Ο | O | Operation |
| Ỻ | I | Inspection |
| → | M | Transport |
| D | D | Delay |
| ∇ | S | Storage |
 |
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Industrial engineering is an engineering profession that is concerned with the optimization of complex processes, systems, or organizations by developing, improving and implementing integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information and equipment. Industrial engineering is central to manufacturing operations.
Allan Herbert Mogensen, known as Mogy, was an American industrial engineer, and industry consultant, and an authority in the field of work simplification and office management. He is noted for popularizing flowcharts in the 1930s, and is remembered as "father of work simplification"
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Charles Day was an American electrical, construction and consulting engineer, and co-founder of Day & Zimmermann. He is known as a specialist in public utility management and operation, and for his seminal contributions to flow charts and the routing diagram.
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The Wallace Clark Award or Wallace Clark Medal is a former management award for Distinguished Contribution to Scientific Management, named after Henry Wallace Clark (1880-1948). The Wallace Clark Award was established in 1949 and was sponsored by the American Management Association (AMA), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the Association for Consulting Management Engineers and the Society for the Advancement of Management.
