What is Engineering Workflows?
A web-based app containing value-adding tools that describe high-level engineering processes, tracking inputs and outputs of various tasks while tracking responsible organizations and key information. Engineering Workflows is intended to capture knowledge and be a source of relevant information for particular tasks, both high-level and specific. This interface is the primary gateway to a workflow mapping called SIPOC: Suppliers, Inputs, Processes, Outputs, and Customers. The following items are foci of the application:
- Increase visibility of processes occurring across the company with lightweight and easy-to-use tools
- Enable all levels of the company to view workflows across teams and business units
- Encourage vertical collaboration of organizations to optimize value streams
- Document and exemplify how work is done
- Clearly communicate process deliverables and reference appropriate job guides
Terminology
See the collection of important definitions below.
| SIPOC | Acronym describing the Engineering Workflows implementation of process tracking: Suppliers, Inputs, Processes, Outputs, and Customers (see below) |
| Artifact | Deliverable piece of work physically or digitally transferred between Processes. If you have trouble picturing the boundary of a Process, generally when a deliverable (i.e. a file) is given to another team or published in ePIC, the steps in that Process are complete |
| Supplier | Organization serving as a source of Artifacts required to complete the work within a Process |
| Input | An Artifact, or a collection of Artifacts, which can be physical materials or data (i.e. a document) that a Process is dependent on receiving to complete |
| Process | The task or set of tasks that make up a unit of work (example: "Design Nozzle"). This may be a granular 1-day task or high-level process occurring over weeks |
| Output | An Artifact, or a collection of Artifacts, which can be physical materials or data (i.e. a document) that exits a Process after completion to feed other Processes or value streams |
| Customer | Organization serving as a destination of Artifacts produced by a Process |
| Organization | Entity describing a business unit, a team, and/or an external entity. The level of detail should be reduced to the lowest group of people receiving or supplying a deliverable (i.e. rather than "Military", use "Air Force", and rather than "Design Group" use "SLS Design Group"). Use Cost Centers and other identifiers as appropriate |
| Process Group | Set of Processes that are related by a common attribute or theme |
| Activity Type | General way to identify what kind of work is associated with a Process (i.e. "Design", "Analysis", etc.) |
| Design Cycle | Abbreviated identifier for which design cycle an item belongs to (i.e. "Preliminary Design Review" is abbreviated PDR) |
How do I...?
Create a New Item
Adding new items is easy. Just click the page in the navigation bar at the top for the page you are looking for and you will be redirected to the list and editor for that item type.
Once the page is open, click the "New" button and the form fields will become editable. After the required items have been filled, click "Save" neat the bottom of the form. Then, if the item has any relatable objects (i.e. Input Artifacts for Processes), you can edit the process to add those.
Edit an Existing Item
To edit an existing item, use the leftmost portion of an item's page. Type part of or all of a name in the search box and hit Enter. Once you have identified the item you wish to edit, click it in the bulleted list and the form fields will populate with that item's details.
Making changes is as easy as editing the form fields and click Save.
Note: If you need to modify related items (adding or removing), make sure to save changes before using those controls as your changes will be lost if they have not been saved.