Carolina Dentistry provides professional dental care in downtown Raleigh. There are currently several proposals to expand the capacity of the dental office for which it is necessary to calculate the current capacity. Following are the main resources at the office:

Resources Number Front Desk Clerk 3 Waiting Room 1 Hygienist 7 Dentist 3

The front desk clerk checks all patients in, verifies their personal information, and checks for dental insurance (an average of 4 min/patient). At the end of the visit, the clerk will also check out each patient by preparing a bill and receiving payment (an average of 2 min/patient). All patients then enter the waiting room (before being seen by a dentist or hygienist) where the average wait time is 15 minutes. The waiting room has 8 chairs and can accommodate up to 8 patients. On average 70% of the patients require dental cleaning (an average of 35 min/patient), which can only be handled by a hygienist. Of the remaining 30% of the patients who don't see the hygienist, 30% come for only consultation (an average of 20 min/patient), 40% require only an operation (an average of 40 min/patient) while remaining 30% require both a consultation and an operation (an average of 55 min/patient). Only the dentist can handle consultations and operations.

Based on the above information, please answer the following questions:

a. What is the capacity of each of the four resources at the dental office (front desk clerk, waiting room, hygienist and dentist) in total number of patient arrivals per hour? Round answer to 1 decimal place. Capacity - front desk clerk: ____________________________________ Capacity - waiting room: ____________________________________ Capacity - hygienist: ____________________________________ Capacity - dentist: ____________________________________

b. What is the system capacity in total number of patient arrivals per hour? Which resource(s) is (are) the bottleneck(s)? System Capacity: ____________________________________

Bottleneck: ____________________________________

c. One of the proposals to increase capacity is to hire one more dentist. If implemented, explain how this would affect the system capacity. Would this change the existing bottleneck? If yes, which is (are) the new bottleneck(s)? New System Capacity: ____________________________________

Change Bottleneck (Yes/No): ____________________________________

New Bottleneck (If Yes): ____________________________________