Consider the following process, where 80 patients enter the process every day, and they go through a

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Question:

Consider the following process, where 80 patients enter the process every day, and they go through a registration process in step 1.

There is a buffer before entering step 2, and the average duration of waiting in that buffer is 15 minutes.

At step 2, there is a assessment to specify where each patient must go next, and depending on the findings of that assessment, usually 60% of them are directed to step 3 which takes 15 minutes in average, while the rest are directed to step 4 which takes 20 minutes in average. Once each patient goes through the respective step (3 or 4), and the work is completed in that step, they exit this process. Please answer the following questions accordingly.

What is the flow unit in this process?

Answer: registration booth/area/machine, hospital employee, patients, assessment

Is there a critical path in this process? Whether your answer is yes or no, please explain why you believe it is the right answer

If at any given time, 10 patients are waiting to be registered or are in the registation process (step 1) in average, how long does step 1 take?

In average, how many patients are waiting in the buffer?

If observations show that step 1 can take 15 minutes per patient, and if there will be 2 staff working 8 hours a day at the registration step, what will be the effective daily or hourly capacity of that resource pool?

If the actual throughput of the resource pool in step 1 (registration) in reality would be 32 patients per day, what is the capacity utilization of that resource pool?