In January 2012, Joan Taylor, the administrator of the Life-Time Insurance Company HMO in Buffalo, New York, was pleased with the Austin, Texas, location that was selected for a new ambulatory health center. (The process used to select this site is discussed in Chapter 8.) The center not only would serve as a clinic for the acutely ill but also as a center for preventive health services. An important goal of the HMO was to offer programs that would encourage members to stay healthy. Various programs already had been planned, including those on smoking cessation, proper nutrition, diet, and exercise. The clinic portion of the health center would be quite large; however, certain constraints in the layout would be necessary. Acutely ill patients would need to be separated from well patients. In addition, federal safety regulations prohibited the radiography department from being adjacent to the main waiting room. It was very important to Ms. Taylor to minimize the walking distance for both the patients and the HMO personnel. The matrix below provides the expected flow between departments based on 35 patients per day.

Questions

1. Assuming that the direction of travel between each pair of departments can be ignored, convert the flow matrix into a triangular flow matrix.

2.Determine the total travel for the current layout given below. Assume a distance of 1 unit between adjacent departments and rectilinear travel (travel in perpendicular directions). For example, the distance between departments A and B is equal to 1 unit. The distance between A and C is 2 units and the distance between A and F is 3 units.

A	B	C
D	E	F

3. Follow a systematic process to develop an improved layout to minimize the total walking between different areas of the clinic. Show all steps in the process. Note: The departments B and E cannot be adjacent based on the case. There are no other restrictions.

4. Show that the layout proposed by you is better than the current layout. Note: Compute the total travel for the improved layout and compare it with the total travel for the current layout.