Production and work force planning in manufacturing systems for long-cycle products: A survey

Critical to health services management in today's economic climate is efficient utilization of our costly and sometimes limited supply of health care professionals. This two-part article gives an overview of current issues in health care work force planning in Canada. In Part I, the problems of estimating current supply are discussed. Needs-based and demand-based forecasting are contrasted. Comprehensive needs-based planning is recommended and changes needed in order to move toward this type of planning are discussed. In Part II, the maldistribution of health care professionals and various corrective measures within the context of needs-based comprehensive planning are discussed.

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985 Improving the Accessibility and Quality of Junior Doctor's Rotas During the Covid19 Pandemic

British Journal of Surgery ◽

10.1093/bjs/znab259.488 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 108 (Supplement_6) ◽

Author(s):

A Gowda ◽

K Smith

Keyword(s):

Work Force ◽

Working Life ◽

Junior Doctors ◽

Medical Speciality ◽

Surgical Department ◽

Working Lives ◽

Pdsa Cycle ◽

Force Planning ◽

At Home

Abstract Introduction Rotas are an important part of a Junior Doctors working life. Having an up to date and accessible rota is important in enhancing Junior Doctor’s working lives in addition to being vital for work force planning and patient safety. During the Covid19 pandemic, rotas have changed several times making it difficult to track changes. Prior to our project, Junior Doctors found it neither difficult nor easy to access rotas at work (2.84 out of 5), found it fairly difficult to access rotas at home (2.38 out of 5) and the rotas they had access to were only average in being up to date (2.69 out of 5). Our project looked to improve this. Method Data was collected by surveys sent to Junior Doctors in the surgical department. PDSA Cycle 1 involved implementing surgical rotas on Microsoft Teams. PDSA Cycle 2 involved having other speciality rotas on Microsoft Teams. Our aims were to improve accessibility of rotas both at home and in the workplace whilst improving how up to date the available rota is. Results After the surgical rotas were on Microsoft Teams, rotas were easy to access at work (4.64 out of 5), fairly easy to access at home (4.24 out of 5) and were mostly up to date (4.41 out of 5). This has led to an improved satisfaction amongst Junior Doctors. Conclusions Currently the surgical department in Derby is using our solution for rotas. Medical staffing is in the midst of implementing this in the Medical speciality.

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An Integrated Rapid Prototyping Environment for Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems

Materials ◽

10.1115/imece2003-42866 ◽

2003 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Chengyin Yuan ◽

Placid Ferreira

Keyword(s):

Manufacturing Systems ◽

Modular Design ◽

Low Cost ◽

Work Force ◽

Shop Floor ◽

Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems ◽

Reconfigurable Manufacturing ◽

Manufacturing Enterprise ◽

Function Blocks ◽

Iec 61499

At the enterprise level, manufacturing organizations are faced with accelerating technological cycles, global competition and an increasingly mobile work force. The flexibility of an enterprise and its ability to respond to new customer demands governs the competitiveness of the enterprise to changes in its market and in the society in which it operates. The flexibility in production processes must be able to accommodate differing product mixes with the changing availability of a skilled work force. It has been recognized for many years that flexibility on the enterprise shop floor can always be achieved if the resulting cost of product, process and system changeovers are not considered. However, with the increasing competitive pressures on today’s manufacturing enterprise; a highly flexible and reconfigurable manufacturing environment must be achieved at relatively low cost and high work-force productivity while maintaining a competitive advantage. To accomplish this goal the manufacturing enterprise must be able to be reconfigured with an increased level of automation that is scalable and flexible to meet diverse product demands. In this paper, we will introduce EMBench as the design and simulation environment for reconfigurable manufacturing systems. This environment provides a universal GUI (Graphical User Interface) that allows user to design, configure and simulate various resources on the shop floor level. In this paper, we present the resource model, workstation model and cell model and explore their characteristics and behaviors. We also propose the general interface for different models using IEC-61499 function blocks that allow scalable expansion and modular design. We use IEC-61499 function blocks and a service layer architecture to integrate various resources on the enterprise shop floor and achieve flexibility at a low cost. This environment facilitates a modular, component-based design of services for enterprise shop floor control.

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