Graphs and ranks of monoids

For a finite monoid S, let ν(S) (ν_d(S)) denote the least number n such that there exists a graph (directed graph) Γ of order n with End(Γ)?S. Also let rank(S) be the smallest number of elements required to generate S. In this paper, we use Cayley digraphs of monoids, to connect lower bounds of ν(S) (ν_d(S)) to the lower bounds of rank(S). On the other hand, we connect upper bounds of rank(S) to upper bounds of ν(S) (ν_d(S)).