Service Management 7th Edition by James Fitzsimmons, Mona Fitzsimmons

Exercise 1

Every fall, volunteers administer flu vaccine shots at a local supermarket. The process involves the following four steps:

a. What are the bottleneck activity and maximum number of people who can be processed per hour?
b. If a fifth volunteer is assigned to help administer vaccinations, what activity now becomes the bottleneck? How has this arrangement influenced the capacity of the system?
c. Using five volunteers, suggest a reallocation of activities that would result in increased service capacity, and draw a product flow diagram. What is the capacity of your improved system?