An Overview of Net Activity Diagrams

An overview of Net Activity Diagrams can help you create a project plan. The diagram displays the flow of activities and the relationship between these activities. Each activity has an end and a beginning. The fork and join nodes represent concurrent flows within an activity. Fork nodes have only one incoming edge, but many outgoing edges. This is similar to the phenomenon of too many decision parameters. Data arriving at an incoming edge is duplicated on many outgoing edges simultaneously.

The Six Sigma Black Belt uses the activity network diagram to develop worst-case lead times. For example, if a new supplier is needed to meet a company's lead time requirement, he or she might want to determine the best time to establish a relationship. If this happens, the diagram could indicate a process that takes 30 days or 60 days to complete. Other factors that can impact the performance of a process are history, sample trials, and judgement. In the diagram, yellow nodes highlight non-normal results.

Another type of activity diagram is a flow diagram. It is often used to model business processes. The high-level representation of the process provides a high-level understanding of the overall functionality of a system, allowing for later investigation of the business requirements. As such, it is more suited to business users than to technical people. There is a huge range of activities modeled in this diagram. In addition to its use in business and software modeling, it is also a valuable resource for developers.