Best way to draw a chevron diagram using Tikz

Question

I want to visualize the transition from a state A to B by doing different operations x,y,z. I want to achieve something similar like this:

 ________                        ________
|        |   ____ _____ ____    |        |
|        |  |    \     \    \   |        |
|   A    |  |  x  |  y  | z  |  |    B   |
|        |  |____/_____/____/   |        |
|________|                      |________|

I know how to draw this blocks in tikz, but I'm not sure if there is already some existing functionality providing an easy way to do this. I want to remove/add/style blocks in a simple way. I also want to put this in a rounded rectangle:

 __________________
(   \    \    \    )
(___/____/____/____)

A circular chain of arrows would also be nice to have.

If there is no existing solution I'm interested in suggestions how to create a good and reusable solution for this problem.

Answer 1

You can use some signal shapes with a null distance node.

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{chains,positioning,shapes.symbols}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
  \tikzset{
    bound/.style={
      draw,
      minimum height=2cm,
      inner sep=1em,
    },
    arrow/.style={
      draw,
      minimum height=1cm,
      inner sep=1em,
      shape=signal,
      signal from=west,
      signal to=east,
      signal pointer angle=110,
    }
  }
  \node[bound] (a) {A};
  \begin{scope}[start chain=transition going right,node distance=-\pgflinewidth]
    \node[arrow,right=1cm of a,on chain] {first};
    \node[arrow,on chain] {second};
    \node[arrow,on chain] {third};
  \end{scope}
  \node[bound,right=1cm of transition-end]{B};
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

Answer 2

You can use \usetikzlibrary{shapes,decorations.shapes}

The example of the pgfmanual p.335 is as follows

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{shapes,decorations.shapes}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}[
decoration={shape backgrounds,shape size=.5cm,shape=signal},
signal from=west, signal to=east,
paint/.style={decorate, draw=#1!50!black, fill=#1!50}]
\draw [help lines] grid (3,2);
\draw [paint=red, decoration={shape sep=.5cm}]
(0,2) -- (3,2);
\draw [paint=green, decoration={shape sep={1cm, between centers}}]
(0,1) -- (3,1);
\draw [paint=blue, decoration={shape sep={1cm, between borders}}]
(0,0) -- (3,0);
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

but I have a problem between two nodes (missing an offset) but I'm sure someone will improve the code below:

\begin{tikzpicture}[
decoration={shape backgrounds,shape size=1cm,shape=signal},
signal from=west, signal to=east,
paint/.style={decorate, draw=#1!50!black, fill=#1!50}]

\node[draw,minimum height=2cm,minimum width=2cm](A)at (0,0) {A};
\node[draw,minimum height=2cm](B)at(5,0){B};
\draw [paint=red, decoration={shape sep=1cm},]
(A)-- (B);
\end{tikzpicture}