Activities
The first step in planning involves identifying the organization’s activities. An “activity” is any action that the organization undertakes to produce a product or provide a service. For example, the activities of a cafeteria may be to:
- decide the menu for meals
- purchase ingredients
- prepare the food
- collect money from customers
- serve the meals,
- clean up and dispose off waste, etc.
It is important to know the activities of an organization to be able to analyze what environmental concerns may be associated with those activities and how those concerns could impact the environment. For the purpose of activity identification and analysis, a simple “process map” is often drawn showing the sequence of activities.
A process map is a graphical representation of the series of activities involved in a process of interest. The figure below shows a simple process map for the manufacture of a product. Developing a process map is an iterative process in which the activities and their sequences are often drawn and refined.
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