ABSTRACT
A system flowchart is a concrete, physical model that documents, in an easily visualized, graphical form, the system’s discrete physical components. A system flowchart is a valuable presentation aid because it shows how the system’s major components fit together and interact. Historically, some analysts used system flowcharts to help develop job control language specifications. A system flowchart’s symbols represent physical components, and the mere act of drawing one implies a physical decision. On a system flowchart, each component is represented by a symbol that visually suggests its function. The flowchart for a complex system can be quite large. When faced with a complex system, a good approach is to draw a high-level flowchart showing key functions as predefined processes and then explode those predefined processes to the appropriate level on subsequent pages. Except for the predefined processes, each symbol represents one of the system’s discrete components at a black-box level.
