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.