Forward planning apparatus

Claim 1

A forward planning apparatus for providing an indication of the status of a plurality of individual units with respect to a predetermined series of stages of an enterprise, said apparatus comprising: a generally circular scale bearing member having a substantially planar face divided into a plurality of annular areas, one annular area having a scale indicating divisions of time; a multisided element representing a unit of the enterprise, said element bearing on each side thereof indicia related to a particular stage of the enterprise and being adapted for application to the face of the scale bearing member within any one of the annular areas, the indicia visible on a predetermined side of the element indicating the present stage of the enterprise for the particular unit and the annular area occupied by the element indicating a further aspect of the status of the unit; and, a plurality of pointers carried by said scale bearing member in spaced relation to the face thereof and movable together with respect to the scale, the spaced relation between the pointers and the face of the scale bearing member being sufficient to permit the pointers to pass over the multisided elements when applied to the face of the scale bearing member without contact therebetween, said pointers being in fixed spaced relation to each other so as to indicate between them predetermined time intervals each related to one of a plurality of time intervals between adjacent of the stages in the enterprise, said pointers and said elements being in continuously visually observable communication with the scale.