Flow process chart

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title: "Flow process chart" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["industrial-engineering", "charts"] description: "Industrial engineering graphical representation" topic_path: "engineering" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_process_chart" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Industrial engineering graphical representation ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Subway_Fare_Card_Machine_Flow_Process_Chart.jpg" caption="Subway Fare Card Machine Flow Process Chart (which doesn't use the ASME standard set of symbols)."] ::

The flow process chart is a graphical and symbolic representation of the activities performed on the work piece during the operation in industrial engineering.

History

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". The Gilbreths' tools quickly found their way into industrial engineering curricula.

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.

Symbols

::data[format=table]

Symbol	Letter	Description
Ο	O	Operation
Ỻ	I	Inspection
→	M	Transport
D	D	Delay
∇	S	Storage
::

References

References

1. "Flow Process Grids and Charts". Textile Course.
2. Frank Bunker Gilbreth, Lillian Moller Gilbreth (1921) ''[https://engineering.purdue.edu/IE/GilbrethLibrary/gilbrethproject/processcharts.pdf Process Charts]''. American Society of Mechanical Engineers. {{webarchive. link. (9 May 2015)
3. Graham, Ben B.. (2004). "Detail process charting : speaking the language of process". Wiley.
4. American Society of Mechanical Engineers (1947) ''ASME standard; operation and flow process charts''. New York, 1947. ([http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005735891 online version])

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::