To determine if the hospital can perform this many operations, one should compute the equipment (operating room) and labor (surgeon) requirements per day and compare it to the current equipment and labor capacity per day.
Equipment:
Given:
• Operations start at 7:30am and end at 4pm = 8½ hrs ~ 8 hrs
• 1 hr/operation = 8 operations/operating room/day
• 5 operating rooms = 40 operations/day
Computation and Interpretation:
• 45/40 = 1.125 * 5 operating rooms = 5.625 operating rooms ~ 6 operating rooms
∴Shouldice hospital needs 6 operating rooms to be able to serve the influx of patients from the proposed expansion. With the additional patients, the equipment capacity is not sufficient (120% utilization rate) with a negative capacity cushion of 16.67%.
Labor:
Given:
• 5.625 operating rooms (from computation above)
• 12 surgeons
• 1 surgeon per operation
Computation and Interpretation:
• 5.625 operating rooms * 1 surgeon = 5.625 surgeons ~ 6 surgeons
∴Shouldice hospital needs 6 surgeons, which is currently achievable. The labor capacity is sufficient (50% utilization rate) with a capacity cushion of 100%.
Due to the lack of 1 operating room, Shouldice hospital cannot perform 45 operations per day.Shouldice hospital will only be able to perform 40 operations per day.