Question

(PLEASE TYPE THE ANSWERS)

Consider Anytown USA’s general hospital. The manager claims he is using a process focus. He says that is the best way to do a hospital business, because it focuses on specific activities, uses general purpose equipment (such as surgical suites or X-ray machines), has a high degree of product flexibility (anything from strokes to car accidents to well-baby clinics), and planning and scheduling is a huge challenge. Costs are really high.

An Operations Management consultant suggests that the hospital manager move away from a process focus and into one of the other three (repetitive focus, product focus, or mass customization.)

Do you agree that the hospital should move away from a process focus and onto one of the others?

Why or why not? If they should move, which one should it be to? If they should remain a process focus, why?

Answer 1

I do not agree with the opinion of the consultant. The main logic behind is that a hospital does not receive the standard incidences while dealing with the patients. Different patients will be having different needs or tests or requirement of treatement. In this type of set p where there is no fixed line of operation, the process focus approach is the best one as in this, different machines and equipment are arranged in a different department and the product (in this case the patient) can move from one location to other.

This is best suited for the organization such as a hospital which has to deal with a variety of requirements. For example, if a patient has to, first of all, undergo X-Ray and then perform some blood test and finally has to take an injection, then this patient can moe from X-ray room then to the lab for tests and finally to the OPD department for having the injection. Thus this is a type of process focus which is best suited for the hospital.