An activity relationship chart (ARC) is a tabular means of displaying the closeness rating among all pairs of activities or departments. In an ARC there are six closeness ratings which may be assigned to each pair of departments, as well as nine reasons for those ratings (each is assigned by a reason code).
Contents
Rating symbols
- A: Absolutely necessary
- E: Especially important
- I: Important and core
- O: Ordinary
- U: Unimportant
- X: Undesirable
Reason codes
- Same table
- Flow of material
- Service
- Convenience
- Inventory control
- Communication
- Same personnel
- Cleanliness
- Flow of parts
A rule of thumb is used to restrict the choice of rating letters:
Developing an ARC
- List all the departments within the facility, and draw a rectangle around each one.
- Draw a rhombus between each department, until you fully construct the rhombus as a tree.
- Divide each rhombus into two halves; the upper half will contain the rating letter, while the lower half will contain the rating-reason code.
References
Activity relationship chart Wikipedia(Text) CC BY-SA