ABSTRACT
As described and illustrated in the preceding chapters, to better understand and improve any system requires some means of taking its measure and mapping its essential characteristics. Maps provide a symbolic or graphical “story” of a system and its associated processes. Metrics represent quantitative symbols that provide much needed “about” system/ process numerical data and associated yardsticks. The described maps in the various preceding chapters are especially useful in depicting the flow of something-be it materials, activities, tasks, events, people, data, etc.—through time and space, albeit at widely differing temporal and spatial scales: from days to mere minutes or seconds, and from thousands of miles to only a few feet.
