بکارگیری عملیات منطقی مدیریت و ابزار برای نجات جان انسان ها: یک مطالعه موردی از مرکز مواد مخدر جهانی در سازمان بهداشت جهانی

In the field of operations management, theory concerning lead-time reduction is well developed. The application of lead-time reduction theory to the not-for-profit operations context, however, has been limited. We present an illustrative case study of a not-for-profit operation in which long lead times cause a substantial increase in unnecessary deaths from tuberculosis and hinder the efforts of the World Health Organization to eradicate tuberculosis globally. The case study suggests that lead-time reduction theory may be as effective in not-for-profit (service) operations as it has been in manufacturing operations. Our results also illustrate how use of sophisticated but “user-friendly” queuing theory-based modeling tools can facilitate the acceptance and transfer of operations logic to a not-for-profit intergovernmental organization setting.

The purpose of this case study is to provide a brief illustrative example of the benefits of transferring operations management logic and tools to a not-for-profit intergovernmental organization, the Global Drug Facility (GDF) of the World Health Organization. As such, it is intended neither to provide a comprehensive literature review of queuing theory applications in not-for-profit organizations nor to extend theory concerning mathematical modeling of such operations. Rather, it provides an overview of how equipping doctors and international civil servants with basic principles of operations management and then training them to build simple queuing theory-based models of their process yielded lead-time reduction results that could save lives. In addition to demonstrating the clear-cut applicability of a queuing model to an intergovernmental organization, the more important contribution of this case study may well be to illustrate the benefits of combining the transfer of straightforward operations management approaches with simple modeling as a means for achieving buy-in and implementation in the not-for-profit context, where managers are not accustomed to thinking of themselves as running operations, and where the emphasis on efficiency and cost reduction makes lead-time reduction even more difficult than in the competitive arena faced by for-profit organizations. The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides some brief background concerning TB and the problems caused by long lead times in the intergovernmental operations working toward the control and eradication of TB. In Section 3, we present our basic process analysis of the GDF application processing operations, followed by a discussion of the queuing theory-based model developed by the team. Results are presented in Section 4. In Section 5 we suggest implications of the study for both the WHO and not-for-profit organizations.