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The group organisation is process carrier orientated, which is to say that the manufacturing devices for one product are put together. Their close location lowers the logistic effort and the duration of production time is short. Taking into account that in any service the supply takes place at production and that in medical service it is the patient who needs to be integrated, group organisation seems essential for any ambulant medical service. It is not only the modern Japanese style of organisation, it is the typical way of how hairdressers have always handled their customers. This form of organisation seems so natural that it is hard to explain. Instead, a hairdresser who would work in a workshop organisation would split washing, cutting and styling. The customer would have to wait three times, walk to three different stations for each phase and would be handled by at least three types of specialised people. The hairdresser would need extra staff to co-ordinate the process. for each client.
Group organisation is the most natural form for any service. If all customers always have to pass the same process, the devices can be organised in line. However, changing from group organisation to line or even flow organisation brings inflexibility to changing customer conditions. In ambulant medical service there is no need for fixed transportation as patients can walk.
In ambulant medical care group organisation can be limited by the cost of special technical equipment which needs to be used as often as possible and therefore must be shared by various patient types to bring down costs. A strict group production or even line production would not allow this sharing as two process lines would cross one station. A solution would be to introduce time shifts for different process types. Patients asking for Refractive Surgery could be brought together on certain days of a week allowing for best group organisation and efficient use of all resources.
Organisation is always somewhat in-between integration of work and specialisation of work. In service integration of work will always be a goal as it reduces the time spent by the customer during service. Moreover, as the customer is always observing, short pleasant stays will improve the reputation and the experienced quality. A site building organisation would be the best choice in service, as the customer can stay in his own environment. Today this approach is an impossibility be out of space due to cost and limited resources in normal circumstances. Group organisation will be the second best choice in service offering a short stay at the institution. Workshop orientation should be replaced by group organisation, if economically possible. In ambulant medical care the organisation should be architectured in group organisation. Workshop organisation can be a second orientation to keep costs down. Applying parallel group organisation with time shifts will be the best alternative in ambulant medical service to "yesterdays" pure split workshop organisation.
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> Service and Quality > Organisation of Service Process
