INITIAL REVIEW: Activities

Look first at what comes into the business (resources), what goes on (activities), followed by what goes out (products and wastes) this will give you a logical sequence of events to follow.

Diagram in/on/out

Walk through the company and think about how the business operates. Start at goods inwards and follow every activity that takes place from receiving an enquiry to completing and despatching an order.

The aim of this excercise is to identify all activities and tasks, together with the resources they use. From these findings you will soon be able to make recommendations based on which tasks in each activity have the potential for improvement, and identify their actual and / or possible impacts upon the environment.

As you walk through, make notes describing each activity and break it down into the specific tasks that take place. This will provide you with a snapshot of each activity to build upon.

Delegate! - as you are looking at each activity explain to those people involved what you are doing, and ask them to draw a flowchart showing the different tasks entailed. You can use these flowcharts later as a basis to decide where controls and / or emergency procedures need to be slotted in and where responsibilities and training needs lie. These flow charts have the potential to be developed into your procedures for operational control.