Mass production methods for mass vaccination: improving flow and operational performance in a COVID-19 mass vaccination centre using Lean

The COVID-19 pandemic has infected tens of millions of people worldwide causing many deaths. Healthcare systems have been stretched caring for the most seriously ill and lockdown measures to interrupt COVID-19 transmission have had adverse economic and societal impacts. Large-scale population vaccination is seen as the solution.In the UK, a network of sites to deploy vaccines comprised National Health Service hospitals, primary care and new mass vaccination centres. Due to the pace at which mass vaccination centres were established and the scale of vaccine deployment, some sites experienced problems with queues and waiting times. To address this, one site used the Lean systematic improvement approach to make rapid operational improvements to reduce process times and improve flow.The case example identifies obstacles to flow experienced by a mass vaccination centre and how they were addressed using Lean concepts and techniques. Process cycle times were used as a proxy metric for efficiency and flow. Based on daily demand volume and open hours, takt time was calculated to give a process completion rate to achieve flow through the vaccination centre.The mass vaccination centre achieved its aim of reducing process times and improving flow. Administrative and clinical cycle times were reduced sufficiently to increase throughput and the number of queues and queueing time were reduced improving client experience.The design and operational management of vaccination centre processes contribute to client experience, efficiency and throughput. Lean provides a systematic approach that can improve operational processes and facilitate client flow through mass vaccination centres.

User satisfaction with rural water drinking points in Woliso District, Central Ethiopia

Access to safe drinking water is essential to healthy living. Thus, investment in rural drinking water points is increasing in Ethiopia. However, little is known about user satisfaction with rural drinking water points. Therefore, this study was undertaken to investigate determinants of the user's satisfaction with rural drinking water points in Ethiopia by considering Woliso District (Woreda) as a case study. A semi-structured questionnaire was administered with 211 randomly selected households from six rural Kebeles (administrative areas), which were selected using a stratified sampling technique. Focus group discussions (FGD) and key interviews (KI) were also held along with observation. The quantitative data were analysed through descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression. The qualitative data were used to augment the results from the regression analysis. The results revealed that location of the water point, availability of guards, queueing time, service reliability, and distance significantly influence the satisfaction of users. Therefore, these significant factors should be addressed when planning water supply projects.

The experience of workflow optimization of the city polyclinic based on the principles of lean production and IT-based management

The article presents the main principles of lean manufacturing, experience and results of lean production launch in a large city outpatient clinic as part of the Ministry of Health pilot project “Lean outpatient clinic”. In the clinic, redistribution of space, optimization of e-document management and registry workflow were performed. It reduced queueing time and time of blood sampling, simplified arranging a visit to General practitioner and other physicians, increased time of doctor and patient interaction, which allowed to serve much more patients with the same amount of resources, save time of medical staff and patients, and increase their satisfaction.

Detailed computational analysis of queueing-time distributions of the BMAP/G/1 queue using roots

In this paper we present closed-form expressions for the distribution of the virtual (actual) queueing time for the BMAP/R/1 and BMAP/D/1 queues, where `R' represents a class of distributions having rational Laplace‒Stieltjes transforms. The closed-form analysis is based on the roots of the underlying characteristic equation. Numerical aspects have been tested for a variety of arrival and service-time distributions and results are matched with those obtained using the matrix-analytic method (MAM). Further, a comparative study of computation time of the proposed method with the MAM has been carried out. Finally, we also present closed-form expressions for the distribution of the virtual (actual) system time. The proposed method is analytically quite simple and easy to implement.

A Customer-Focused Electricity Bill Pay Points Siting Model

In order to solve the electricity bill pay points siting problem for electric power corporation, this paper proposes a hybrid model to optimize the siting of pay points and improve customers’ satisfaction. Different from traditional methods, customer density, queueing time and satisfaction degree, transportation and other factors are all taken into consideration in this model. Finally, a “10-minute electricity bill pay network” is constructed in Zhengdong new district with the application of the model proposed by this paper.

Prediction and Measurement of Travel Time Along Pedestrian Routes

A methodology to predict the walking and queueing times on pedestrian routes is developed. Walking time predictions are based on either average pedestrian space or flow rate. Queueing time estimates at signalized intersections are based on an assumption of random arrivals. The methodology is tested by comparing travel time predictions with the results of travel time runs on several routes near the city center of Brisbane, Australia. Data from 49 signalized intersections within the routes indicate that upstream coordinated signals can significantly affect downstream signal delay. It was also found that, in a coordinated signal system, the standard deviation of delay at a signal can be much different from what would be expected if arrivals were random. The effect of signal coordination on average delay was also apparent at the arterial level.