Process Map and Rework Register
Four sheets and four documents that carry the two things a swimlane cannot show: where the elapsed time goes, and what comes back.
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Step Register
Larkspur Print and Packaging, order to dispatch
| Measured from | 260 jobs, six months to 30 September |
| Steps and lanes | 13 steps across 6 lanes, one of them the customer |
| Touch time as a share of elapsed | 7% |
Two numbers per step, never added together
| # | Step | Lane | Work | Wait before | Elapsed to here |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Order received and checked | Customer Service | 15 min | 0 | 15 min |
| 3 | Artwork received and checked | Studio | 30 min | 2 d | 2 d 2 h |
| 5 | Prepress imposition | Prepress | 45 min | 6 h | 2 d 11 h |
| 7 | Proof approved | Customer | 0 | 3 d 5 h | 5 d 17 h |
| 9 | Press make-ready | Press | 1 h 30 | 1 d 12 h | 7 d 10 h |
| 11 | Die-cutting and gluing | Finishing | 4 h | 8 h | 8 d 1 h |
| 13 | Pack and dispatch | Dispatch | 1 h | 4 h | 8 d 7 h |
| all | 13 steps | 6 lanes | 14 h 35 | 7 d 17 h | 8 d 7 h |
Why the columns stay apart
Step 3 is thirty minutes of work behind a two-day queue. It is not a two-day step, and the queue and the work get fixed in completely different places by completely different people.
Seven rows of thirteen shown. Zero and blank mean different things here: zero is a step that runs straight into the next one, blank is a wait nobody has timed yet.
Every result for this search is a diagramming tool. A canvas, a shape library, swimlanes, an export. Drawing was never the hard part. Look at what the notation can actually hold: in BPMN 2.0's own minimal element set, a task carries exactly two attributes, an id and a name, and a sequence flow carries its two endpoints. There is nowhere to write how long a step took, and nowhere at all to write how long the work waited.
So every arrow is the same length and the gap between two boxes reads as nothing. In a process crossing six teams, the gaps are where the time is. Every step in this pack carries two numbers in separate columns, the work inside it and the wait before it, never added together. The filled example runs fourteen hours thirty-five of touch time across eight days seven hours of elapsed time. Touch time is seven percent of the total, and that ratio is the finding.
Then the loops, which are the other half. Nobody narrating their own job says that a third of them come back to them, so rework is structurally invisible to a walkthrough and only surfaces from records. Send River the walkthrough and the status histories, or take the sheets blank, alongside the matrix that says who owns each step, the procedures those steps refer to and the plan for when a step's system is gone.
What's in the pack
Step Register
One row per step with the touch time inside it and the wait before it in separate columns, plus a running elapsed figure so a reader can see which single gap moved the total. Zero and blank mean different things: one is a step that runs straight into the next, the other is a wait nobody has timed.
Rework Loop Register
Every loop with its measured rate, the record it was counted in with the raw counts written out, the mechanism causing it, and the days it adds per occurrence. Ranking by days added rather than by rate reorders the list, which is the point of carrying both.
The caused-by column
Loops cause loops. A late loop is usually the visible end of a missing field four steps upstream, and the two sit in different lanes, so the register carries the chain. Fixing the last loop in a chain buys nothing, because the next job arrives with the same gap.
Handoff Matrix
One row per lane crossing with the queue time, the arrival quality answered only by the receiving lane, the rejection rate, and what the receiver has to chase every single time. That last cell is almost always one or two specific missing fields, and a missing field is fixable.
System Touchpoints
Where the same information gets entered by hand into a second, third and fifth system. Re-keying is never a step, so it never appears on any map, and it is where two records of one order quietly start to disagree.
The drawn map
Drawn from the Step Register rather than beside it, so the picture and the numbers cannot drift. Waits appear at their real size instead of as identical arrows, and every return path carries the share of work that takes it.
Mapping Standard and What a Swimlane Cannot Show
The rules on one page, plus the reference explaining why the standard picture omits both time and rework. Some notations rule sequence out on purpose: the federal function modeling standard states that its arrows do not represent flow or sequence at all.
Process Narrative and Handoff Notes
A filled narrative for a fictional printer with the map, the totals and the sample size, and the crossing conversations written up in the receivers' own words. Once the map holds, assigning responsibility for each step is the next piece of work.
How to use it
- 1
Open in River, or take it blank
Install the pack in River and hand it what you have, or download the four documents and four CSV sheets and fill them yourself.
- 2
Fix the two edges
The observable event that starts the process and the one that ends it. A purchase order arriving is a start point. Order intake is not.
- 3
Send the walkthrough and the records
The walkthrough gives you the sequence and the touch times. The status histories, reject logs and version counts give you everything the walkthrough cannot.
- 4
Ask one question per crossing
What share of work arriving here is usable exactly as it arrives, asked of the receiving lane. Then ask what they chase every time.
Frequently asked questions
Is this free, and what do I get?
Free, with no signup gate on the download. Four documents and four spreadsheets. The AI half is optional: send a walkthrough and whatever records show work going backwards, and River builds the register, draws the map from it and counts the loops. More in the template library.
Why not just use a diagramming tool?
Because drawing is the part that was never hard. A canvas gives you shapes and swimlanes, and then every arrow on the finished picture is the same length. A two-day queue and a step that runs straight into the next one look identical, so the improvement work goes at the boxes.
Why keep touch time and wait time in separate columns?
Because they get fixed in completely different places. Twenty minutes of work behind a two-day queue is not a two-day step. Add them together and the number tells you to make somebody faster, when what the process needs is for the queue in front of them to stop existing.
Can I not just ask people where the rework is?
You will get the happy path. Nobody narrating their own job says that a third of them come back to them, because rework is the exception in the story people tell about their work. So the loops get counted in the records first, then taken back to the lane for the cause.
Which records actually hold the rework?
Anything that marks work going backwards. Status histories that visit a status twice, file version counts, reject reason fields, revision numbers, proof email threads, a quality log, a reprint or credit note log. The filled example counts five loops against a stated denominator of 260 jobs.
Why does the customer get a lane?
Because leaving them out deletes the largest number on the sheet. In the filled example the two customer waits, finding print-ready files and approving a proof, are three quarters of the elapsed time. Neither is anybody internal's step, so on most maps neither one exists.
What do we do with the map once it holds?
Group the loops by where their fix lands rather than where they happen, and several usually resolve to the same two missing fields at step one. Then set the ownership with a matrix that survives the redesign and write up whatever procedure the changed steps now need. Where a crossing queues behind one supervisor, the span and layer analysis says whether that is structural.
Map where the time actually goes
Take the documents and CSV sheets blank, or install this pack in River and send it a walkthrough plus whatever records show work coming back.
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