The Tema General Hospital (TGH) has designed their patient turnaround time at the out-patient department (OPD) to have a mean of 18 minutes with a standard deviation of 2 minutes. It has come to the attention of the Management of TGH that patients are not satisfied with the service they receive at the OPD because of the undue delays they experience at the department. This has led to a reduction in hospital patients and hence a reduction in revenue. Management has attempted to address the problem by organizing refresher courses for staff at the OPD and providing more seats. This strategy has not worked as patients are still complaining about undue delays. The management of TGH have been hinted that a quality management expert can help address the problem by find a lasting solution to the undue delays.

You have been awarded the contract to help TGH address this problem. So you study their processes and collect data on the patient turnaround time. Table 1 shows the daily average turnaround time for patients at the OPD of TGH over a period of one (1) month.