Assignment: Operation Management
Case Study I: Process Analysis at Arnold Palmer Hospital
The Arnold Palmer Hospital (APH) in Orlando, Florida, is one of the busiest and most respected hospitals for the medical treatment of children and women in the U.S. Since its opening on golfing legend Arnold Palmer's birthday September 10, 1989, more than million children and women have passed through its doors. It is the fourth busiest labor and delivery hospital in the U.S. and one of the largest neonatal intensive care units in the Southeast. APH ranks in the top 10% of hospitals nationwide in patient sat- isfaction.
"Part of the reason for APH's success," says Executive Director Kathy Swanson, "is our continuous improvement pro- cess. Our goal is 100% patient satisfaction. But getting there means constantly examining and reexamining everything we do, from patient flow, to cleanliness, to layout space, to a work- friendly environment, to speed of medication delivery from the pharmacy to a patient. Continuous improvement is a huge and never-ending task."
One of the tools the hospital uses consistently is process charts. Staffer Diane Bowles, who carries the title "clini-cal practice improvement consultant," charts scores of processes. Bowles's flowcharts help study ways to improve the turnaround of a vacated room (especially important in a hospital that has pushed capacity for years), speed up the admission process, and deliver warm meals warm. Lately, APH has been examining the flow of maternity patients (and their paperwork) from the moment they enter the hospital until they are discharged, hopefully with their healthy baby, a day or two later. The flow of maternity patients follows these steps:
• Enter APH's Labor & Delivery (L&D) check-in desk entrance.
• If the baby is born en route or if birth is imminent, the mother and baby are taken directly to Labor & Delivery on the sec- ond floor and registered and admitted directly at the bedside. If there are no complications, the mother and baby go to Step 6.
• If the baby is not yet born, the front desk asks if the mother is pre-registered. (Most do preregister at the 28- to 30-week pregnancy mark.) If she is not, she goes to the registration office on the first floor.
• The pregnant woman is then taken to L&D Triage on the 8th floor for assessment. If she is in active labor, she is taken to an L&D room on the 2nd floor until the baby is born. If she is not ready, she goes to Step 5.
• Pregnant women not ready to deliver (i.e., no contractions or false alarms) are either sent home to return on a later date and reenter the system at that time, or if contractions are not yet close enough, they are sent to walk around the hospital grounds (to encourage progress) and then return to L&D Triage at a prescribed time.
• When the baby is born, if there are no complications, after 2 hours the mother and baby are transferred to a "mother- baby care unit" room on floors 3, 4, or 5 for an average of 40-44 hours.
• If there are complications with the mother, she goes to an operating room and/or intensive care unit. From there, she goes back to a mother-baby care room upon stabilization-or is discharged at another time if not stabilized. Complications for the baby may result in a stay in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) before transfer to the baby nursery near the mother's room. If the baby is not stable enough for discharge with the mother, the baby is discharged later.
• Mother and/or baby, when ready, are discharged and taken by wheelchair to the discharge exit for pickup to travel home.
Task
• As Diane's new assistant, you need to flowchart this process. Explain how the process might be improved once you have completed the chart.
• If a mother is scheduled for a Caesarean-section birth (i.e., the baby is removed from the womb surgically), how would this flowchart change?
• If all mothers were electronically (or manually) preregistered, how would the flowchart change? Redraw the chart to show your changes.
• Describe in detail a process that the hospital could analyze, besides the ones mentioned in this case.
Case Study II: De Mar's Product Strategy
Chapter 5: Design of Goods and Services
De Mar, a plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning company located in Fresno, California, has a simple but powerful prod- uct strategy: Solve the customer's problem no matter what, solve the problem when the customer needs it solved, and make sure the customer feels good when you leave. De Mar offers guaranteed, same-day service for customers requiring it. The company pro- vides 24-hour-a-day, 7-day-a-week service at no extra charge for customers whose air conditioning dies on a hot summer Sunday or whose toilet overflows at 2:30 A.M. As assistant service coor- dinator Janie Walter puts it: "We will be there to fix your A/C on the fourth of July, and it's not a penny extra. When our competi- tors won't get out of bed, we'll be there!"
De Mar guarantees the price of a job to the penny before the work begins. Whereas most competitors guarantee their work for 30 days, De Mar guarantees all parts and labor for one year. The company assesses no travel charge because "it's not fair to charge customers for driving out." Owner Larry Harmon says: "We are in an industry that doesn't have the best reputation. If we start making money our main goal, we are in trouble. So I stress cus- tomer satisfaction; money is the by-product."
De Mar uses selective hiring, ongoing training and education, performance measures, and compensation that incorporate cus- tomer satisfaction, strong teamwork, peer pressure, empower- ment, and aggressive promotion to implement its strategy. Says credit manager Anne Semrick: "The person who wants a nine-to- five job needs to go somewhere else."
De Mar is a premium pricer. Yet customers respond because De Mar delivers value-that is, benefits for costs. In 8 years, annual sales increased from about $200,000 to more than $3.3 million.
Task
• What is De Mar's product? Identify the tangible parts of this product and its service components.
• How should other areas of De Mar (marketing, finance, per- sonnel) support its product strategy?
• Even though De Mar's product is primarily a service product, how should each of the 10 strategic OM decisions in the text be managed to ensure that the product is successful?
Format your assignment according to the give formatting requirements:
• The answer must be using Times New Roman font (size 12), double spaced, and typed, with one-inch margins on all sides.
• The response also includes a cover page containing the student's name, the title of the assignment, the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the required page length.
• Also include a reference page. The references and Citations should follow APA format. The reference page is not included in the required page length.
Source: Reprinted with the permission of The Free Press, from On Great Service: A Framework for Action by Leonard L. Berry.