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Management of Workflows 97

type of aircraft and its payload will influence the flight path: perhaps some extra stops are needed to refuel.

*    What are the weather conditions? For this the navigator goes to the north side of the company^s building to meet with someone in meteorol-ogy. Together they will discuss the weather for that day and that person will put the information on a map.

•    There might be some exceptions: some areas have to be avoided be-cause of military exercises, etc. At the south side of the building, the directors have their room. They know alł about those exceptions and will tell the navigator what she needs to know. The same map is used to draw the areas for which exceptions hołd.

Once the navigator has gathered these three pieces of information, she can start płanning the flight in her room at the west side. For this she uses a special form, not the form she already has fiłled out in part. The reason for this is that she wants to be able to make corrections without spoiling the offtcial flight plan. After that, she takes the flight plan to the directors. One of them will check this flight plan with other, already approved flight płans. This will ensure that collisions with other aircraft because of incorrect flight plans will be prevented. Also some mistakes the navigator might have madę, however smali the chances of that are, will be spotted then.

If the flight plan turns out to be unsafe, the navigator returns to her room to do the płanning again and come up with an improved flight plan. This will be followed by another check with the directors, just as often as it takes to make the flight plan safe. Then both the navigator and the director will sign the flight plan, after it has been put on the official form by a secretary speciałly trained to do so.

Since the fuel has to be paid for by the company itself, a courier then has to take the flight plan to one of the company’s logistics people (in another building two miles from where the navigator has her room). This person has to sign the flight plan to approve the use of fuel. Of course, he can refuse to sign. In that case, the refusal will be madę elear to the navi-gator and a letter will be sent to the customer. In this letter, the company will send its excu$es and explain why no acceptable flight plan could be produced. Of course, “CRASH” hopes to be of better service in the futurę.

However, if the person in logistics approves, a courier takes the flight plan back. Then the captain of the aircraft has to sign it. This is because she will be responsible for the aircraft every second of the flight. Again,