Software

Whether you are completely reengineering your company or simply want to optimize a particular business process, accurate process simulation tools are invaluable. Scitor Corp.'s Process Charter for Windows combines process mapping and process simulation in a single package that costs thousands less than some simulation packages on the market. Process Charter actually makes it easy to play with resource allocation and process flow, and get instant feedback on your choices.

Suppose we put this over there . . .

This software is addicting. It could become the businessperson's equivalent to Doom, my favorite computer game. OK, it's not exactly as much fun, but it is less violent and much more useful.

You begin by mapping your process. In this respect, Process Charter operates much the same as other flowmapping software we have tested -- better than some, worse than others.

It uses the standard click-and-stick method for placing process symbols. Each symbol represents an activity. Click on a process symbol from the palette and stick it on your worksheet. Click and drag from that symbol to a new location, and another node appears already connected to the previous node. All nodes or connections can be rearranged by dragging. Connections automatically follow. Although this software doesn't have a fully automated router, the alignment tools make it very easy to make your flowchart pretty.

This is all pretty standard. Here's the good stuff. Open up the resources spreadsheet and enter all the pertinent information about all employees or resources involved in the process, including unit cost (or pay rate), quantity, hours available, overtime rate and maximum overtime.

Next, click on each activity symbol and assign resources to the activity. This includes a calendar option that allows you to define hours and days that a resource is available. If the selected activity can route its output to more than one destination, you can select the probability that an output will go to a particular destination.

Once all activities have been assigned resources, run the simulation. As it runs, each process step lights up as it is activated, with bottlenecks shown in red. Animation slows down the analysis, but it sure is fun to watch. Turn off animation to speed up long simulations.

After the simulation, view summary statistics for the entire process or a particular activity. Data includes such information as total activations, active time, idle time, interrupted time, average wait, maximum wait, total effort and total cost. This information is immediately available as a standard bar graph, stacked bar and 3-D bar.

Once your current process is mapped and simulated, you have a base line against which to compare what-if scenarios. Change resource allocation, costs, flow or any other aspect of your process, rerun the simulation and instantly receive comparison data. Because scenarios are so easy to generate, it's easy to get hooked on tinkering. It's also eye-opening to see in a flash what does and doesn't impact a process.

I have only one serious complaint. The software's capabilities to generate what-ifs is incredible, but the manual falls far short of telling you how to do it. The information is there, but only in fragments and somewhat buried. Scitor promises that new releases of the manual will step users through a complete mapping process and how to generate scenarios.

Don't let this shortcoming stop you from checking Process Charter out. This is probably the best process simulator for the money. At $595, it would pay for itself the first time you use it. You can't say that about Doom.