1999 Flowcharting & Process Simulation Software Buyers Guide

by Brandi Floberg

Flowcharting has become a widely adopted

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practice for the majority of businesses today as technological advances make it increasingly easy to use basic graphic concepts to create complex process maps.

 All basic flowcharting tools (and flowcharting/process management tools) have the ability to place shapes, connecting lines, and text on a drawing page or surface. Shapes are placed on the diagram, representing process steps, and lines connect the shapes to show relationships between them.

 Different options in this process have similar results, whether they're attained by a drag-and-drop function or a click-and-place function. The distinction is simply between programs that operate more like drawing programs and those that work with added functionality specific to flowcharting. Some of the more important flowcharting features are intelligent line routing, automatic line creating and shape numbering. Features that allow easier flowchart creation are automatic page connectors, node connections, layout tools and insert/reconnect functions.

 The following is Quality Digest's 1999 Flowcharting and Process Simulation Software Buyers Guide. In it, we present products that are useful as basic flowcharters as well as those that are useful in sophisticated process management initiatives. The key difference is the ability of the process management tools to capture and analyze data. This may be as simple as calculating time and cost totals based on individual flowchart steps or as complex as performing a simulation of the process captured in the flowchart and highlighting process bottlenecks.

 As with all of our buyers guides, this compilation is not intended to endorse or exclude any particular organization or product. This guide is meant only to provide readers with flowcharting and process management software information from those companies that responded to our requests. We hope you find it helpful.

Axion Corp.

• 100 Mill Plain Road, Third Floor
• Danbury, CT 06811
• Ph. 888-235-9500 Fax 203-792-8005
• www.axionsoft.com

4TQ Toolkit
4TQ Toolkit is a suite of tools for documentation, management, dissemination and analysis of business processes for a variety of end-uses such as ISO/QS/AS 9000, ISO 14000, safety management and BPR.

The Ben Graham Corp.

• 6600 S. Troy Frederick Road
• Tipp City, OH 45371
• Ph. 800-628-9558 Fax 937-667-8690
• www.worksimp.com

Business Process Charting 5.0 Basic
Specialized for improving business processes. Symbols and flow lines display enough detail to make common-sense improvements apparent. ANSI/ASME symbol set for process improvement with a 50-year proven track record.

Business Process Charting 5.0 Professional
Specialized for improving business processes. Symbols and flow lines display enough detail to make common-sense improvements apparent. Launch forms, drill down to subprocesses and output to Playscript desk procedures.

CFM Inc.

• P.O. Box 353
• Bedford, MA 01730
• Ph. 800-647-1708 Fax 781-275-7008
• www.teamflow.com

TeamFlow
Unique team-based process flowchart shows responsibilities, hyperlinks to online documents and creates schedules automatically. Simplifies team project management. Speeds the ISO 9000 registration process. Supports virtual teams. New version has Java viewer for Internet viewing of TeamFlow charts.

Inspiration Software Inc.

• 7412 S.W. Beaverton Hillsdale Highway Suite 102
• Portland, OR 97225
• Ph. 800-877-4292 Fax 503-297-4676
• www.inspiration.com

Inspiration
Use Inspiration to develop all of your ideas, plans and processes. Inspiration's diagram view makes it easy to visually brainstorm, plan and explain the interrelationships between processes, variables and events. Use it to dynamically create concept maps, process flows, knowledge maps, flowcharts and other visual diagrams. Inspiration's integrated outline view helps to create clear, concise written proposals and reports. Use it for quick prioritization and organization of ideas and information.

Kaetron Software

• 26119 Oak Ridge Drive
• Spring, TX 77380
• Ph. 800-938-8900 Fax 281-298-2520
• www.kaetron.com

TopDown Flowcharter
TopDown Flowcharter for Mac and Windows creates network diagrams, timelines, flowcharts, org charts, entity relationship diagrams and more. Save documents as HTML for Web publishing.

Mainstay

• 591-A Constitution Ave.
• Camarillo, CA 93012
• Ph. 805-484-9400 Fax 805-484-9428
• www.mstay.com

WinFlow
Produce top-quality diagrams fast, without tedious drawing. Present your company's organizational structure or design and document the manufacturing process. A fast, easy-to-use and flexible flowchart application.

MEGA International USA Inc.

• 404 Wyman St.
• Waltham, MA 02451
• Ph. 800-920-6342 Fax 781-890-3103
• www.mega.com

Procedure Analysis and Design
Procedure Analysis & Design (PAD) is a powerful business modeling and improvement tool based on a multi-user object database that provides consistency and reusability and allows multi-form outputs (Word, Excel, HTML pages).

Micrografx Inc.

• 505 Millennium Drive
• Allen, TX 75013
• Ph. 214-495-4000
• www.micrografx.com

iGrafx Process
iGrafx Process offers integrated process diagramming, simulation and analysis features for process improvement. Features Microsoft Office compatibility, HTML/Java support, VBA extensibility and more. Fully integrated with iGrafx Professional.

iGrafx Professional
iGrafx Professional offers powerful diagramming with built-in intelligence. Diagram business processes, networks, organizational structures and more. Features comprehensive Microsoft Office and VBA support, HTML/Java, network-enabled deployment, media management, and collaboration.

New Learning Systems

• 19964 Winter Lane
• Saratoga, CA 95070
• Ph. 888-867-1828 Fax 408-867-8665
• www.newlearningsystems.com

Q-Skills
Q-Skills is the world's easiest flowcharter with process mapping capabilities. Learn how to create consistent, error-free flowcharts with time and cost calculations in less than 15 minutes. Attach subprocesses. Automatic documentation for Word or HTML.

Patton & Patton Software Corp.

• 16890 Church St., Building 16
• Morgan Hill, CA 95037
• Ph. 800-525-0082 Fax 408-778-9972
• www.patton-patton.com

Flow Charting PDQ
Flow Charting PDQ allows you to draw professional flowcharts, org charts, process charts and other types of business diagrams (data flow, BPR, TQM, ISO 9000).

PowerWay Inc.

• 6919 Hillsdale Court
• Indianapolis, IN 46250
• Ph. 800-964-9004 Fax 317-598-1740
• www.powerway.com

PowerWay Instruction Writer
Instruction Writer helps you create and maintain your Level III work instructions for ISO 9000/QS-9000 compliance. It provides the structure and format for instructions, so you can focus on content. It also presents text, flow diagrams and a pictorial view of your instructions.

ProModel Corp.

• 1875 S. State #3400
• Orem, UT 84097
• Ph. 801-223-4600 Fax 801-226-6046
• www.promodel.com

ProModel
Do you want big performance gains? Break the rules, ask all the what-ifs without risk. ProModel simulation can dramatically reduce work in process, increase throughput, slash costs and improve service.

RFF Electronics

• 1053 Banyan Court
• Loveland, CO 80538
• Ph. 970-663-5767 Fax 970-669-4889
• www.rff.com

RFFlow
RFFlow creates a wide variety of flowcharts, organization charts and diagrams for education, business and industry.

Scitor Corp.

• 256 Gibraltar Drive
• Sunnyvale, CA 94089
• Ph. 408-745-8339 Fax 408-745-8301
• www.scitor.com

Scitor Process v3
Scitor Process v3 offers an unrivaled combination of process management functionality and ease of use, providing remarkable advances in process mapping, simulation and communication functionality regardless of process complexity.

SkyMark Corp.

• 7300 Penn Ave.
• Pittsburgh, PA 15208
• Ph. 800-826-7284 Fax 412-371-0681
• www.skymark.com

PathMaker
PathMaker's intuitive flowcharter offers speed and new rich features such as layers, drill-down and custom shapes. Also features project pathways, forms, brainstorm/affinity, tree and SPC tools .

Software Productivity Centre

• 1122 Mainland St., Suite 460
• Vancouver, BC V6B 5L1
• Canada
• Ph. 604-662-8181 Fax 604-689-0141
• www.spc.ca

EssentialSET for Project Management
EssentialSET covers the best practices in project management according to the SEI and PMI, diagnoses your project's level of control, and helps you document your processes in project management.

EssentialSET for Software Development
Documentation is critical for reaching the repeatable level of the SEI's capability maturity model. Use EssentialSET's templates to document your processes and as a checklist for best practices in software development.

ISOplus
ISOplus covers the whole hierarchy of ISO 9001 documents, using a sample set created for software development companies. It helps you create the documentation necessary to prepare for ISO 9000 audits.

SPSS Inc.

• 233 S. Wacker Drive
• Chicago, IL 60606
• Ph. 800-543-2185 Fax 312-651-3747
• www.spss.com

allCLEAR
allCLEAR helps drive process change that makes organizations more effective and efficient. With allCLEAR, teams can quickly visualize processes, quantitatively analyze data in the process flows and communicate results enterprisewide.

Systems Modeling

• 504 Beaver St.
• Sewickley, PA 15143
• Ph. 412-741-3727 Fax 412-741-5635
• www.sm.com

Arena
Using key process inputs like resources, costs and time, Arena provides detailed, compelling animation of your process, revealing bottlenecks as they occur and providing graphical output of key performance measures.

Visio Corp.

• 2211 Elliott Ave.
• Seattle, WA 98121
• Ph. 206-956-6000 Fax 716-586-0820
• www.visio.com

Visio 2000 Standard Edition
Visio 2000 Standard Edition, the leader in business diagramming software, is the fastest, easiest tool for creating professional-looking flowcharts, organization charts, timelines and much more.