How to create Ishikawa (fishbone) diagrams with LaTeX?

Question

Is there an automated way or a "template" to create Ishikawa (also called "fishone") diagrams with LaTeX?

They are used e. g. to show the factors influencing a process and have a hiearchical structure:

• the horizontal main line is the process itself
• the big branches show the main factors
• and they can be detailed further to show the factors which influence or "compose" the main factors

For the usage:

• it would be great if the layout (distributing the branches equally) could be done more or less automatically

Example from wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishikawa_diagram):

(link to google search result for more "inspiring" examples, to see how such diagrams can look like and how they are used)

Answer 1

TikZ trees would probably be the way to go. However, things get pretty hairy fairly early on (example in Plain w/ XeTeX):

\input tikz
\font\figfont="Myriad Pro" at 8pt
\font\tinyfigfont="Myriad Pro" at 6pt
\usetikzlibrary{trees,shapes.geometric}
\tikzpicture[>=latex,font=\figfont,lbl/.style={draw=black,very thin,fill=#1,ellipse}]
  \coordinate
    child [grow=right] {
      child {
        child [grow=125] {
          child [grow=left] {node {\tinyfigfont Cost of Transport} edge from parent[<-,thin]}
          child {
            child [grow=left] {node {\tinyfigfont Access to premises} edge from parent[<-,thin]}
            child {node [lbl=yellow!20] {Transport}}
            child [missing]
          }
          child [missing] edge from parent[<-,thick]
        }
        child [xshift=1cm] {
          child [grow=125] {
            child [grow=left] {node {\tinyfigfont Security} edge from parent[<-,thin]}
            child {node [lbl=green!20!yellow] {Premises}}
            child [missing] edge from parent[<-,thick]
          }
          child
          child [grow=-125]
        }
        child [grow=-125] {
          child [grow=left] {node {\tinyfigfont Consultation} edge from parent[<-,thin]}
          child {node [lbl=purple!20] {Clients}}
          child [missing] edge from parent[<-,thick]
        }
      }
    };
\endtikzpicture
\bye

This could be improved upon a lot, but hopefully I could give you some idea.