The invention relates to a method enabling a user to create, edit, monitor and/or optimise the overall machine process of a programmable machine or system assisted by a graphics editor. The programmable machine or system is initially put together as a system of individual machine units which are involved in the overall machine process during certain times by running a number of partial machine processes. These partial machine processes of the machine units involved in the overall machine process are firstly synchronised with one another once they have been set up and parameters are then set for them. All of the aforementioned method steps take place in a two-dimensional process diagram created by the graphics editor, in the diagram area of which all the partial machine processes involved in the overall machine process are plotted by means of assigned process symbols. The process symbols are positioned or repositioned by the graphics editor so that they are arranged in a machine component dimension based on their assignment to a machine unit and in a time dimension based on the synchronisation of their associated partial machine processes with other partial machine processes of the same machine unit or with partial machine processes of other machine units.