St Marks Hospital measures its capacity in terms of its resources, partly because there is not a clear relationship between the number of beds it has and the number of patients it treats. If all its patients required relatively minor treatment with only short stays in hospital, it could treat many people per week. If most of its patients required long periods of observation or recuperation, it could treat far fewer. Output depends on the mix of activities in which the hospital is engaged and, because most hospitals perform many different types of activities, output is difficult to predict. Due to some inefficiencies in its operations and human resource, the hospital is currently working at 75% capacity even though management has plans to run at 95% capacity.
The hospital currently has 4500 beds, 80% of which is reserved for patients requiring major treatment. The hospital is currently building a new wing that will increase this capacity by 30%. Once the new wing is completed, management have decided that 70% of this will be reserved for patients requiring major treatment. The hospital management is absolutely certain that once the construction of this new wing is completed, it will be able to meet all forecast demand and also have enough spare to handle sudden emergencies. You are required to calculate the following:
(a)
i. Current Designed Capacity
ii. Current Effective Capacity
iii. Current Actual Output
iv. Current Utilization
v. Current Efficiency
vi. Future Designed Capacity
vii. Future Effective Capacity
viii. Future Actual Output
ix. Future Utilization
x. Future Efficiency
(b) Evaluate the hospital’s approach to its capacity management
Question 2
The hospital has constructed a table that has information on the activities involved in the construction of the new wing:
Activity Weeks Precedence
A 10 –
B 8 A
C 10 A
D 6 A
E 4 B
Q 12 A
F 14 D and E
G 8 C
H 12 G
J 16 G
K 4 F and H
L 6 J
M 5 L
(a) Draw the network diagram from the information in the table above and calculate the Total Float on each Activity
(b) If activity F is delayed by 19 Weeks, will the project be delayed? If so, analyse one action that the Operations Manager could take to avoid exceeding the current length of the critical path
