Flow Charts Case

Everyday people go through processes that determines what he or she will do and how he or she will complete his or her daily task. These tasks are simple as brushing your teeth to planning an entire day. In most cases we are always looking for ways to streamline our activities to increase efficiency or reduce the amount of time required to compete certain tasks. A good way to assist in developing such a process is to create a flowchart that outlines the factors that affect the outcome of the activities. This paper will show a daily processed used to get from the bed each morning to arriving at work. The purpose of this flowchart is to identify critical factors to reduce the amount of time required to get from the bed to the office.

Below are some of the decisions made and the factors that affect the amount of time it takes to get from home to work are as follows:

1. How many times did I reset the snooze before getting up?

2. Personal Hygiene (shower, tooth brush, clothes).

3. What I am wearing for the day and was the clothes laid out the night prior.

4. What physical activity is scheduled for that morning?

a. How much time do I spend on the treadmill at home?

b. If I go to the gym do I shower after the workout? Which muscle group is scheduled for the day

5. What am I eating for breakfast? Oatmeal or protein bar or shake.

6. Which vehicle am I driving (where is the vehicle located in the drive way). I may have to move the vehicles around in the drive way.

7. Is it a trash day?

8. Which gate do I use that has the least amount of traffic and shortest wait time?

All though all these factors affect the time it takes to travel from home to work. Each factor has decisions associated with it that will determine the outcome of the process. An example is, which body part I work on at the gym or how much time I spend on the treadmill.

The metric that best illustrates the success or failure of this process is time. If I am to reduce the amount of time it takes to complete each phase of the process it will produce more time to accomplish the assigned tasks. Cycle time is referred to as the amount of time elapsed between stating a job until the job is complete (Chase, Jacobs, & Aquilano, 2010) The flowchart illustrated in this paper shows all the steps in the process. By using this flowchart it will provide a visual representation of the steps and assist in developing ways to reduce the time required to get from point A to point B while completing each step and reducing time spent between steps.

Each morning the alarm clock rings at 5:30