Reference no: EM132736279

ORGANICALY GOOD QUALITY (Adopted from Operations Management 6th edition 2010 by Slack, Chamber and Johnston)

Of all the operations which have to respond quickly to customer demand, few have more need of speed than the emergency services. In responding to road accidents especially, every second is critical. The treatment you receive during the first hour after your accident (what is called "golden hour") can determine whether you survive and fully recover or not. Making full use of the golden hour means speeding up three elements of the total time for treatment-the time it takes for the emergency services to find out about the accident, the time it takes to get the casualty to appropriate treatment.

Alerting the emergency services immediately is the idea behind Mercedes Benz's TeleAid system. A soon as the vehicle's air bag is triggered, an on-board computer reports through the mobile phone network to a control center (drivers can also trigger the system manually if not too badly hurt), satellite tracking allows the vehicle to be precisely located and the owner identified (if special medication is needed). Getting to the accident quickly is the next hurdle. Often, the fastest method is helicopter. When most rescues are only a couple of minutes' flying time back to the hospital, speed can really save lives. However, it is not always possible to land a helicopter safely at night (because of possible overhead wires and other hazards) so conventional ambulances will always be needed, both to get paramedics quickly to accident victims and to speed them to hospital. One increasingly common method of ensuring that ambulances arrive quickly at the accident site is to position them not at hospital but close to where the accidents are like to occur. Computer analysis of previous accident data helps to select the ambulance's waiting position, and the global positioning systems help controllers mobilize the nearest unit. At all times a key requirement for fast service is effective communication between all who are involved in each stage of the emergency. Modern communications technology can play an important role in this.

Case Questions:

1. How will you design a performance measure for this emergency service using the 3R's of performance?
2. Design a simple balance scorecard for this emergency service of TeleAid.