Decision flow chart, examples

Figure 12.3 Process vessel depressurization decision flow chart example.

The permit-required confined spaces standard defines a "confined space " lists specific employee training requirements, equipment, and personal protective equipment required prior to entry and communications and emergency procedures. Appendix A to the 1910 standard also includes an informative Permit-Required Confined Space Decision Flow Chart, as well as an example of a Confined Space Entry Permit. 

Fig. 1. An overview of the DCLD tier/triage flow chart Boxes 1, 2, and 3 are taken from the Office of Device Evaluation decision tree, which is routinely used to determine whether a product can be reviewed as a 510(k) and found substantially equivalent to a predicate (currently marked) device or whether the product must be handled as a fundamentally new product and submitted to a PMA review. Box 4 determines the novelty of the product in terms of analyte, matrix, and/or technology. If new issues of safety and effectiveness are raised, a highly novel product might require review as a PMA. If the issues of safety and effectiveness are not new but require high-level scrutiny, then a tier III review is warranted. Examples of products requiring a tier III review would include 1. Analyte troponin for diagnosis of MI (with creatinine kinase as the predicate) 2. Matrix sweat patches for drugs of abuse (with urine drugs of abuse tests as the predicate) and 3. Technology nucleic acid...

When one s path in the flow chart reaches a box with no lines going out from it, and double underlines at its bottom, one has arrived at the most suitable method. In some cases, one s decision at some point may be conditional on a variable in the problem. For example, transition probabilities may be small compared to unity for large orbital angular momenta, but not for small ones. In such cases one should follow both branches of the decision, and arrive at two different methods, one for each range of the variable. In a few such cases, both branches may later rejoin, and only one method is recommended after all. In more difficult cases, as many as three different methods have been found to be necessary for different ranges of the variables. Examples of all these cases have been found. 

The decision process flow chart for working a substitution problem is shown in Figure 4.17. More substitution examples can be found in Section 8.4.1. 

To create an information flow chart, a complete list of steps for a batch process must be documented and displayed. From this representation, it is straightforward to prepare a sequential function chart. Figure 22.4 shows the flow-chart symbols that indicate the points of decisions, processing operations, input-output structure, and the sequence they should follow, which will be illustrated later in Example 22.1. 

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