American Nursing Services,

Inc.Business Process Re-engineering

Submitted by,

Group 1

Problems being faced by ANS

Time lag in communication between nurses and hospitals.

Low retention ratio of nurses and staffers.

Last moment cancellations

Affecting brand image

Increased costs

Reduce staffer morale and hence lower productivity

Variation in nurses’ preferences

Despite having high number of skilled nurses on payroll,

perennial inadequacy of appropriate fit

Root Cause Analysis using Fish Bone Diagram

Streamlini

ng

Operations

Lower

morale

Issues Patricia Kathleen is worried

about

How to fund the growth of American Nursing Services, Inc.

How to make existing operations more profitable

Non Uniform Performance of employed Nurses at different

hospitals: No monitoring

Whether to go for Geographical Expansion

Addressing the Issues

Initial funding through Private Stock Sell-out, later through Debt

Implemented MIS to mechanize control functions as a reactive

aid to staffing

Appointment of Chief Nurse so as to monitor the performance of

nurses

Help Patricia Kathleen to make her

business successful and achieve

growth Upgrading MIS to improve efficiency

Identify capable and proactive nurses to reduce last moment

cancellations from nurse’s side

Training staffers to provide the capability to efficiently manage

calls from hospitals

Differential Pricing based on the time of initiation without losing

competitive advantage

Radical Improvement of ANS

Processes

A1

A2

A3

An

Hospitals in

different areas of

the city

Central Communication & Management Layer

A1 - Staff

Team

Nurse 1

Nurse 2

Nurse 3

Nurse n

A2 - Staff

Team

Nurse 1

Nurse 2

Nurse 3

Nurse n

A3 - Staff

Team

Nurse 1

Nurse 2

Nurse 3

Nurse n

An - Staff

Team

Nurse 1

Nurse 2

Nurse 3

Nurse nAcco

rdin

g to

Ca

pa

bili

ty

Every nurse to be provided with a pager (as it is 1990). The moment a hospital calls on

Central Communication Layer, the message is passed to the Nurse. She then replies

with either her consent or dissent. The message is sent priority wise and according to

area.

Segre

gate

d a

ccord

ing to A

rea

The hospitals call the ANS,

where the call is received by an

automated system which

redirects call according to area.

The Area Staff Team

automatically informs the nurses

(priority wise) about the call.

Their response is reverted to the

Hospital without any idle time

BPR principles applied are

–1. Treat geographically

dispersed resources as though

they are centralized

2. Put the decision point where

the work is performed, & build

control into the process

3. Link Parallel activities in the

workflow instead of just

integrating their results

Resolving issues & Risks Involved

Increasing profitability of existing operations

• Due to the segregation of nurses according to area in which they live & their skillsets, responding to calls from hospitals becomes an almost immediate process with increased satisfaction & very little loss of time in communication

Non Uniform performance of nurses

• As the satisfaction level of nurses would increase, there would be a drastic increase in the performance of the nurses. Their preferences are met as well as there is reduced cancellations as ANS can respond with minimal delay.

Growth & Geographic Expansion

• The best way to expand to other cities is by acquisitions of smaller such agencies in other cities. The Logistic network & manpower with an existing setup would be available onto which the new model can be applied to garner competitive advantage

Since Business Process Reengineering requires massive overhaul of the entire

system along with heavy funding, it is of utmost importance to be able to implement

this well & fast. Risk would undoubtedly be high, but after implementation the returns

& operating efficiency would far outstrip competition thus drastically increasing

market share for ANS.

Risk

Issues