PROCESS ANALYSIS EXERCISE 3.1

(For odd-numbered groups) Group Member ID Numbers: _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

. Briefly distinguish between the following pairs of terms as used in OM Process Analysis :

a. Bottleneck and Cycle Time

b. Flow Rate and Throughput

c. Processing Time and Flow Time

d. Resource Capacity and Process Capacity

e. Resource Utilization and Process Utilization [5 marks each]

2. Ghana COCOBODs Cocoa Clinic offers health delivery services to employees of the Ghana Cocoa Board and to the general public. The OPD service process typically includes five activities that are conducted by five different personnel in the sequence described below1 , with their activity times in parenthesis:

Activity #

1. Welcome patient and retrieve patients record (13 minutes)

2. Take vitals (08 minutes)

3. Consult the medical doctor (12 minutes)

4. Make payment at cash office (10 minutes)

5. Receive medications from pharmacy (15 minutes)

Use the foregoing to answer the following questions.

a. Identify the flow unit of this process. [2 marks]

b. What are the capacities of the various activities? [5 marks]

c. Which is the bottleneck activity of the process? Explain [3 marks]

d. What is the process capacity? [2 marks]

e. What is the utilization of the medical doctor? [3 marks]

f. What is the process utilization? [3 marks]

g. What is the cycle time in minutes? [3 marks]

h. What is the idle time per unit at the nurse taking the vitals? [3 marks]

i. Suppose the clinic attends to about 45 clients on a typical Monday, estimate the throughput of the health delivery process on this Monday. [5 marks]

j. What is the average labour utilization across all the health workers? [3 marks]

k. Suggest two ways of improving the process outlined above. [5 marks]