History of Flowchart
Flowcharting has been used for a long time. There is no individual who designed flowcharting because it can be customized to fit any need or purpose. Flowcharts were first hand-drawn which made changes difficult and messy. Frank Gilbreth explained the first flow chart to the members of ASME in 1921 to introduce his presentation "Process Charts - First Steps in Finding the One Best Way". Flowcharts soon made their way into the industrial engineering district. During the early 1930s, Allan H. Mogensen (industrial engineer) trained business people to use some of the industrial engineering tools at the Work Simplification Conference in New York. A graduate, Art Spinanger, developed their Deliberate Methods Change Program. Another graduate, Ben S. Graham, used flowcharting to process information with the use of multi-flow process chart to exhibit many documents and their connection with others. After computers are able to use graphics, the first flowcharting software was developed for programmers. After the development of mouse and menu, flowcharts can be easily manipulated and altered. Flowcharting programs are now quick and easy to use. The flowchart draws a picture of the process that can be understood in seconds. Logic flows through the process and branching and recombining decision pats. Specialized flowcharts are used for more sophisticated uses.
Also in the late ‘40s, Heraman Goldstine and John Van Neumann used flowcharts to develop computer programs, and diagramming soon became increasingly popular for computer programs and algorithms of all kinds. Flowcharts are still used for programming today, although pseudocode, a combination of words and coding language meant for human reading, is often used to depict deeper levels of detail and get closer to a final product.
In Japan, Kaoru Ishikawa (1915-1989), a key figure in quality initiatives in manufacturing, named flowcharts as one of the key tools of quality control, along with complementary tools such as the Histogram, Check Sheet and Cause-and-Effect Diagram, now often called the Ishikawa Diagram.
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