Applying the Principles
of GRAFCET to Business
Operationsand Management
Kelvin Enumah is currently assistant
building/industrial automation
instructor and the student
development officer at the Institute for
Industrial Technology, Lagos, Nigeria.
He attended the Center for Corporate
Learning, Leeds, the United Kingdom,
where he received an affiliateship in
engineering from the City and Guilds
of London Institute. After 3 years
of intense industrial engineering
training which included experiences in
Guinness Nig. Plc. and Leoplast Ltd, he
ventured into teaching in a technical
institute. His flare for operations
and management resulted from his
automation trainings/practices, and
he has developed several teaching
methodologies to put into practice
the effects of proper operations in
learning and human development.
Applying several automation principles
to human activities like learning and
business management has been his
recent endeavor.
Affiliate of the City and Guilds of London Institute,
UK and Certified KNX Partner, Nigeria
Kelvin Enumah
Abstract: Operations is a very unique part of every com-
ponent. When applied to business, strategy and tactics
become beautiful. But when applying these spectacular
strategy and tactics, it is very important to understand
how and what is to be achieved at every point in time.
Business analysts spend time in finding the best way to
understand and interpret businesses, while operations
directors struggle to ensure that every step of the business
is gotten correctly and startups find it hard to get their
operations go smoothly. The GRAFCET tool that would
be exemplified here would be of great guide for everyone,
who has something to do with operations.
Keywords: business, GRAFCET, management, Operations,
sequence, steps, transitions
Introduction
Automation engineering has some peculiar relation-
ships with business and humanity. This can be seen
through the operations and sequences of tasks, de-
picted in forms of inputs (requirements) and outputs
(goals). The GRAFCET is a tool used in analyzing ma-
chine programing operations. First, this tool is graphi-
cal, showing the current stage of the set operation, the
requirements for the next, and this continues depend-
ing on the number of outputs or set goals in this case.
Business operations is not far from this because, to
achieve a goal you need certain requirements. This tool
helps in managing these operations, and is a practical
approach towards helping business/management stu-
dents in applying engineering perfections to business
through the use of GRAFCET.
Expert Insights 1
 Applying the Principles of GRAFCET to Business Operationsand Management
I would like to assume that only au-
tomation engineers know and use the
GRAFCET tool. Although, my assumption
would certainly be wrong if I were to apply
it to the flowchart tool. The flowchart tool
is one that is familiar to a lot of discipline
and work levels. It is used by analysts,
managers, programers, business adminis-
trators, firms, engineers, and many more.
It is certain that flowcharts have existed
since the early twentieth century, though
not surprising that it is still being defined
till date, and its functionalities are still be-
ing explored. But why did certain aspects
of the automation trade and programmers
break out from this wonderful flowchart
chain, why did they choose to create the
GRAFCET in order to apply it specially,
what did Siemens, Festo and other OEMs
(original equipment manufacturer) see?
This question precisely is what is to be
answered by showing how GRAFCET is
applied to business operations and man-
agement as used successfully in the field
of automation.
How Would You Describe An
Operation?
Somewhere in Nigeria, a 10-year-old boy
was sent to bed at 9 pm by his parents be-
cause of he had to attend school the next
day. He was actually seeing a cartoon on
how the police carried out their activities
during a distress call. The boy didnt want
to go to bed because he wanted to watch
the cartoon. He could do nothing, but obey.
After a while, when in his room, he re-
membered some tactics from the cartoon
he was seeing and immediately got to
work in planning how he would get back
to the sitting room to finish watching the
cartoon. He conceived the idea, he visu-
alized it, and he planned and planned.
Finally, he confirmed that his parents
had left the sitting room; it was time for
executing his plans.
The boy jumped out of the room, every-
thing was going as planned, lights were
2 Expert Insights
off, the door to his parents room was
closed, and the remote to the TV was left
in its usual place; he smiled. Just when
he turned on the TV, he looked at the wall
clock and saw that it was 10 pm. Immedi-
ately, he remembered that it was time for
his dads usual night water drinking, he re-
alized that he was about to enter a big pot
of trouble. He was at the verge of aborting
his mission, when his dad swung the door
open, and behold it was dooms day for him.
Of course you know the end of this particu-
lar story...
Operations in its simplest terms can be
associated with procedures, process, func-
tioning, and plan. Can we simply put, an
operation is the vessel, which houses the
strategy and tactics for achieving a goal?
Why Should We Talk About Machine
Operations?
We are talking about machine operations,
because we eventually would end up ap-
plying one of its very useful tools in busi-
ness operations.
A machine operation is the elementary
function, which a machine has been de-
signed to perform based on defined steps
and inserted instructions. It could also be
a series of tasks, which a machine has been
designed to perform. Basically, it is the ac-
tivities to be carried out by a machine. There
could be a possibility that a machine has the
capability to carry out several operations,
but what is most important is that all the ac-
tivities to be carried out by the machine can
be broken down into steps. If you are famil-
iar with machining, you hear questions like
what are the steps to be taken for the lathe
machine to carry out a turning operation.
This already starts leaving in your mind
an image mapping series of sequences and
repetition. This is very correct because an
operation can be broken down into steps,
and if the steps are arranged properly you
should get the desired operation. Misplac-
ing or misinterpreting the steps would lead
to an operation failure at the end.
 Applying the Principles of GRAFCET to Business Operationsand Management
Machine Operations Versus Business
Operations
Business operations are those ongoing re-
curring activities involved in the running
of a business for the purpose of producing
value for the stakeholders.
One of the obvious reasons why man-
agement exists is because there is an op-
eration. If there were no operations, no
occurrences, no steps, no actions, and no
processes; then in business, there would be
no management.
In a machine, there is an unavoidable
part that manages all the operations of the
machine: the control system. Just like in a
computer, the CPU. Just like in any other
machine, the controller (programmable logic
controller [PLC] maybe) just like in a business,
the management. As would be seen below,
there are necessary items of every operation:
the steps, the action that takes place in that
step, how each step is gotten to, and lastly,
what happens at the end of the last step (does
the operation end or does it continue from a
certain point or from the beginning).
In listing a number of familiar terms,
objectives, outcome, and outline, it is clear
that a change in vocabulary is what can be
said to be particular about the two parties
in contest here.
What Is a GRAFCET?
GRAFCET is a graphical programing lan-
guage used for PLC. It is one of the languages
defined by IEC 61131-3 standard. It can be
used to program processes that can be split
into steps.
The GRAFCET is a tool for describing
the specifications of the control unit of an
automated system. The working of an auto-
matic equipment may be described graphi-
cally by a group of:
STEPS to which are associated certain
ACTIONS
TRANSITIONS which are conditions to
be fulfilled
DIRECTED LINKS linking steps and
transitions
Expert Insights
GRAFCET is a standard valid in Europe
(DIN EN 60848), which may be used to de-
scribe a control function or a machine.
GRAFCET is the abbreviation for
GRAphe Fonctionnel de Commande
Etapes/Transitions.
It means Step Transition function chart.
GRAFCET helps to guarantee the best
possible, highly efficient working relation-
ships between different professional groups
(or disciplines).
The designer creates the GRAFCET,
and the mechanical engineer can use it to
construct the requested machine. Then,
the PLC expert writes a program that cor-
responds to this, and the commissioning
engineer can prepare the machine for
operation. The system operator is better
able to understand the machines pro-
cesses using the GRAFCET, and mainte-
nance staff can remedy disruptions faster
because the systems functions can gauge
faster.
GRAFCET is aimed at simplifying the se-
quence of an operation. Many times, when
an automated operation is to be designed,
you tend to assume that the process of
achieving it is cumbersome. But with the
GRAFCET, you can immediately break
down the whole operation into steps that
are to give an expected action. These ac-
tions dont just happen, so transitions are
listed for every step. These transitions are
what would lead to each step.
The steps are represented with boxes;
there is a line linking each box, and just
between each box, there is a horizontal line
running through the vertical link connect-
ing the boxes, and this represents the list of
necessary transitions, in order to move to
each next step.
There are many other tools used to plan
and sequence operations, but using the
GRAFCET is firstly an intellectual work,
which would help its user have a holistic
view of what is expected. Find below what
a GRAFCET looks like, displaying the steps,
actions, and transitions.
3