Consider the flow in Figure 7–1 but assume that no patients require follow-up appointments.

All patients first check in with the single receptionist, which takes an average of 6 minutes. They are then seen by one of two nurses who take weight, blood pressure, etc., which takes an average of 10 minutes. Finally, they are seen by a GP in an examination room, which takes an average of 16 minutes. There are three GPs. The table below summarizes this data. Assume the clinic has no waiting room or examination room constraints.

Assume that there are eight patients arriving an hour during working hours.

Resource Minutes per patient Number of resources Receptionist 6 1 Nurse 10 2 Doctor 16 3

a. What is the capacity of each resource?

b. Which resource is the bottleneck and hence what is the capacity of the system?

c. Suppose they wish to increase system capacity, what actions do you recommend?

d. What are the utilizations of the receptionist, nurses, and GPs, respectively (during working hours)?

e. Now suppose that 20 percent of patients require follow-up appointments, which take 2 minutes to book on average. This means that, on average, the receptionist spends 6 1 0.2 3 2 5 6.4 minutes per patient. What is the new capacity and utilization of the receptionist?