Programming and Control of the Laundry's Production in the General Hospital San Juan de Dios

Introduction

In Guatemala the General Hospital San Juan de Dios plays a very important roll. As a public organization or entity, it must bring to the poblation a quality service and it's responsible of the guatemalans' health. As part of my final practices of the Industrial Engineering career, I have been assigned to help in one of many problems that the authorities of the Hospital have in the diary operation of the one.

So, they have identificated a need, that in this case is to fix the disorder and decontrol of the production in the laundry department; and they went to the University for find some students that could solve not just this problem, but also a lot of different others.

  

Context

The laundry department of the General Hospital San Juan de Dios have many problems, it is disrupted, disordered, the people don't count with safe working conditions, they are unmotivated, etc. The origin of these problems starts in the organization of the whole Hospital, because it has excessive procedures just for make little changes and this affects the desires of improve.  The people responsible of this department (the assistant manager, the manager, etc) have a lot of good ideas, but in most cases it not depend on them to decide wheter to buy. This affects the power not only to buy some new necessary things, but also the power to reward or punish the operator who deseves it.

In the department, it is necessary to analize all the activities and make studies, with the objective to obtain a general vision of the situation and try to solve it; this using the different tools given by the engineering faculty as flowcharts, time studies, travel diagrams, industrial hygiene and safety, etc. Doing the mentioned studies we can understand the process, the problems and then we can implement some action plans.

Population Targeted

It could be said that maybe all the poblation of capital city at some time could be targeted, because we don't know when we will have an accident or get a disease and need the services of the hospital. Now, talking about people that are already hospitalized, of course they are the most benefited ones, they will have clean clothes, and this contributes to their rehabilitaion and confort.

 

Institutional Framework

The project then, it's developed in the laundry department ubicated in the bottom floor of the second tower. It's first just a improvement proposition waiting to be accepted and launched, but it could be an important step for a total change. This means also, there are no funds or money prepared or destinated to be expended until the project gets into the authorities hands and give their approval. So, the one who is developing the project is me and I'll try to reach important conclusions to make the department a better one.