Shouldice Case Study
Shouldice Case Study
Shouldice Case Study
The case study mentioned that Shouldice Hospital was not able to utilize their beds to the
full capacity. They are facing a high demand, there is pressure to expand capacity at their
facility. Provided the restricted market exploration, it’s hard to foresee the future demand
with any conviction. Thus, the little risk possibilities of implementing temporary and
revocable measures would be advisable.Currently they have 90 beds in the hospital, so at
maximum capacity each bed would be filled. With the current system, where each patient
stays for 3 days after their surgery, the beds are only at maximum capacity 3 days of the
week: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. On Monday and Friday 60 beds are used, and
Saturday and Sunday there are only 30 beds used. With this current system, the hospital
operates on 450 patients every week.
If the hospital utilized all of their beds, they would be able to operate on 630 patients
every week. This means that the hospital is at about 71% capacity. One reason the
hospital may not be operating at max capacity is that there are other constraints on the
process besides the number of beds. One constraint is the 5 day work week of the
hospital. Since they do not perform surgeries on weekends, it limits the amount of beds
that are used during that time, which would explain why only 30 beds are used on
Saturday and Sunday.
Another constraint is that there might not be enough operating rooms to accommodate the
increased number of patients. Adding one more operating room would increase the
number of surgeries to be operated on by 30 patients per day to 45 patients per day, thus
increasing revenue for the hospital. So, that would increase hospital capacity to about
86%. Adding another operating room would be the most beneficial, however, if the
number of beds also increased, because the new operating room could only be fully
utilized if the surgeons perform 45 surgeries a day instead of 30.
Referring to the theory, There are 3 types of flexibility capacity. In this case study,
Shouldice Hospital had an action to fix the problem with the implementation as
mentioned at case study page 11 “Problem and Plans” Dr. Shouldice believes that the
hospital needs to add the capacity, for example open for saturday operations and increase
capacity by 20% or, with an investment $2 Million and permission from the provincial
government, could add another floor or room of the hospital operation are common.
Then, too there is the possibility that diversity at other locations into other locations into
other specialists offering similar opportunities such as eye surgery, varicose veins, or
hemorrhoids.
3. Refer to capacity expansion, do you foresee the best capacity decision for
Shouldice and please create a decision tree diagram.
If the hospital increased their bed capacity by 50%, they would go from 90 beds to 135
beds. This would increase the number of surgeries that could be performed each day to 45
surgeries. However, the hospital could not perform 45 surgeries a day because they are
limited by the number of operating rooms. There are only 5 operating rooms in the
hospital, and the surgeons generally perform 1 surgery per hour. If the surgeons continue
to work at the same speed, there can be 5 surgeries completed every hour. Since the work
day is 8 hours long (operation starts at 7:30 AM; surgeon leaves at 4 PM), the maximum
number of surgeries that the hospital can perform in one day is 40. The number of
surgeries performed in one day can be increased, however, if the hospital went from an 8
hour work day to a 9 hour work day. The number of surgeries could also be increased if
the hospital built another operating room. It is important to consider how increasing the
hours and the number of surgeries affects the relationship between the surgeons and the
patients. The administrator at the hospital believes they are at optimal capacity, where
there is a high quality of service and the surgeons are happy at their job. If the surgeons’
work load increased, they may become more tired or stressed at the amount of surgeries
they need to perform each day and the quality of their service would decrease.
Operation Capacity = 5 Operation rooms working 8 hrs 5 days of week
Weekly Operation Capacity = 5 x 8 x 5 = 200 operations/week
4. On the exhibit 2, what is your proposal to change the organization structure refer
to your answer on the #3 questions. Explain your argument refer to the Journal
Articles in Google Scholar (related to theory of Organization Management)!
5. In exhibit 4, what do you think about the competitor's advertising compared to what
Shouldice has? Please explain your argument to the Journal Articles in Google
Scholar (related to theory of Marketing Advertising)!
In exhibit 4, we can see the competitor Shouldice Hospital is The Canadian Hernia
Clinic. In the advertisement by The Canadian Hernia Clinic we can see three points: the
advertising is Hernias (Ruptures) - Repaired Under Local anesthesia as by Canadian
Method, No Overnight Hospital Stay, and Consultations Without Charge. We break the
points one to one. Point one (Hernias (Ruptures) - Repaired Under Local anesthesia as by
Canadian Method) is Hernia operations can be repaired by local doctor with method
canadian. Point two is No Overnight Hospital Stay means no one parent or patients can
stay inthe clinic .Point three is Consultations without Charge is if you consult you don't
pay for it.
The Difference in marketing of Shouldice Hospital and The Canadian Hernia Clinic is
very significant.
Reference
Al-Ghunaim, T. A., Johnson, J., Biyani, C. S., & O’Connor, D. (2021). Psychological
and occupational impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on UK surgeons: A
qualitative investigation. BMJ Open, 11(4), e045699.
https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2020-045699
Chase, R. B., Shankar, R., & Jacobs, F. R. (2018). Operations and supply chain
management, 15e (SIE). McGraw-Hill EducationAl-Ghunaim, Johnson, Biyani
and O’Connor, 2021