Learning Outcomes
Assessment Overview
– The final assessment for this module is a final Project and Report 100% (3,000 Words) with 3 parts to analyse.
– Please ensure to submit all 3 parts in one final report for your submission.
– Please take note of the Special instructions below and the Key Components and Task outline for the 3 parts of this assessment.
Special Instructions
Every year the individual assignment for the Systems Modelling and Simulation module has a different theme. For example, in the previous years the assignments had manufacturing, banking services, airports, and logistics themes. This year our assignment is about Healthcare. All this variation allows you to appreciate how this fundamental subject can be applied to different problems which fundamentally have similar performance indicators. Enjoy this year’s assignment!
A clinical centre in a war torn country in a remote area receives patients with various conditions. The clinic works 24 hours a day and admits two types of patients.
Patient Type 1 (Low Priority): These are type of patients that are of low priority and they are normally treated by either the Clinical Nurses (CN) or the General Practitioners (GP). These patients arrive at the hospital with a rate Expo (20) min. They are seen by the admission officer, register and are sent to the Triage station. The registration follows POIS distribution with the following parameter (8) minutes. At the Triage station if a CN is available they are assigned to a nurse and only at special occasions if all the CNs are busy and if a GP is available the patient will be seen by the GP for assessment. If there are no Triage staffs available, the patients wait in the waiting area. This area has maximum capacity of 20 people (i.e. if the number in the queue behind the Triage is more than 20 the patient leaves the hospital). Report on the record of number of patients who leave the medical centre without being attended to. Patients that arrive during the break of the Admissions officer leave the system (record the number and report on this number of patients leaving due to admissions being closed)
The Triage processes consist of Patient Assessment, the assessment process follows a Triangular distribution with the following parameters (8, 12, 15) minutes. After the assessment process 85% of the patients are diagnosed, given medication by the Triage staff and leave the clinic. The remaining 15% have further complications that require further consultation with a GP in the Triage for further assessment. The processing time for these patients is Uniform (7, 10) minutes. 30% of these patients who have been diagnosed by the GPs need to be admitted to a bed for admission of drip medicine or monitoring and the rest of patients are discharged and leave the system. The admitted patients normally occupy the beds following a Triangular Distribution (10, 20, 35) hours.
All discharge processes require the chief nurse and one of the GPs (the less busy one) to assess the patient. This process takes a Wei bull distribution (14, 18) minutes. The patient is provided with the necessary medication and leaves the system.
There are no admissions after 6:00pm.
Patient Type 2 (High Priority): Are patients with severe illnesses or wounds they are at a rate of Expo (220) minutes and take priority over the low priority patients. The high priority patient does not go through the admission process. These patients are assessed at the Triage by any available CN or GP and admitted to operation room (hint: this type of patients has higher priority to type 1 in the triage). There are 2 surgeons available and they conduct surgery from 9:00am to 6:00pm. Each surgery requires a surgeon, one of the 2 available Operation Rooms and one OR Nurse. The operation follows an Erlang Distribution with the following Distribution parameters (1, 2.3) hours. The queue behind the operation has maximum capacity of 10. Upon completion of the operation the patient is admitted to a bed in the Ward. The excess patients from queueing for Operation (more than 10 in the queue) are sent for transfer by the ambulance to the hospital.
There are a total number of 5 beds in the Clinic Ward and is shared between all patients that are admitted to the hospital (Low and High Priority Alike). The capacity of queue behind the ward is 3. If all beds are occupied or there is not enough space behind the operation rooms, the patient is transferred to a faraway hospital using the 2 available ambulances (Each ambulance is used half of the time). If neither beds nor ambulance is available the patient will lose his/her life.
The Operation Room relies on a power Generator that breaks down (making total operating room unusable) following a Poisson Distribution of 3 times a month with it taking Normal Distribution time of (2, 0.5) hours to fix.
The operation room has also a number of machines that need to be working during the operation. They are:
Machines Number
Available Mean time between failures (days), Rule Out of Service Time (min)
ECG 3 Expo(10), Pre-empt Triangular(30, 45, 60)
Resuscitation 2 Expo(15), Pre-empt Triangular(120, 150,180)
Defibrillator 2 Expo(5), Pre-empt Triangular (10, 30, 60)
Patients can only be discharged between 8:00am-7:00pm. Any patient missing the 7:00pm Discharge would remain in the clinic – occupying the bed until the following day to be discharged.
There are 2 Ward Nurses (WN) during the day and 1 at night shifts. The WN are assigned to all beds in ward and they monitor patients, one has to be present at any time. In the day each nurse has to go to a break at least every 6 hours. When both nurses are available they agree to take responsibility for one area of the Ward which is equally divided between them. The Clinical staff and admissions staff follow rotating shifts with the following schedules:
Type Number Schedule Rule
Admission &
OR Nurse 1 &
1 8:00-6:00pm – Lunch Break 12:00-12:30,
Afternoon Break 3:00-3:30 Wait
CN 2 8:00-7:00pm – Lunch break one nurse at a time can be anytime between 12:00-2:00pm. Duration of break 30 minutes. Afternoon break between 3:00- 5:00pm only one can go on a break at each time. Ignore
WN 2 Day Day shift 8:00-8:00pm – Lunch break one nurse at a time can be anytime between 12:00-2:00pm. Wait
Duration of break 30 minutes. Afternoon break between 3:00-5:00pm only one can go on a break at each time. Night Shift 8:00pm-8:00am the nurse will eat and drink whilst on watch (no breaks).
Chief Nurse 1 8:00-7:00pm 12:00-1:00pm lunch break and hour
3:30-4:30 tea break in the afternoon Ignore
GP 2 8:00-7:00pm – Lunch break one nurse at a time can be anytime between 12:00-2:00pm. Duration of break 30 minutes. Afternoon break between 3:00- 5:00pm only one can go on a break at each time. Pre-empt
Surgeons 2 9:00am-6:00pm – The surgeons are required to take 4, 30 minute breaks during their shift. They make sure that the surgeries are completed within the scheduled hours and make a round of the Ward after 6:00pm which normally takes 1 hour. Wait
Ambulance 2 Available all the time. The round trip from the clinic to the hospital and back is 300 miles. Average speed is 65 per hour.
1. Critically evaluate and implement principles of systems approach and analysis.
2. Describe, critically evaluate, and appropriately apply manufacturing concepts to real world industrial systems and to design, plan and solve arising problems that day-to-day management of such systems encounter.
3. Develop the required skills for modelling, simulating and critically analysing performance of deterministic and stochastic systems.
4. Acquire the skills to recognise the elements and rules governing supply chains/logistics and reverse logistics for better management and engineering of these systems.
5. Apply key tools and techniques for planning and critically evaluating the design of enterprise systems
6. Modelling of interactions and negotiations between components of enterprise systems
7. Demonstrate integrated modelling of key processes within manufacturing systems
8. Use simulation and optimisation techniques to identify improvements for Enterprise integration 9. Preparation of written reports
10. Critically evaluate a range of complex scenarios and make informed decisions.
11.Exercise a high level of initiative and personal responsibility
