So what are the implications of a decision of process choice? Whether you've picked, let's say a jumbled process or whether you've picked a linear kind of a process. Let's take each one of these and talk through the implications of them. So cost. Obviously when you have a dedicated set of activities for different types of customers, the up front cost is going to be very high, right? You have to invest separately for a process for the kids as as patients as well as for the adults as patients. So they're going to be two parallel processes. You have two wait areas, you have two radiology departments, two pharmacies and so on and so forth. So the up front cost is going to be high. Now what you have to think about is over a long period of time, if you have enough volume of each of these different types of customers. Your cost per customer, your cost per patient in this case might be lowered. So if you're going for that kind of an advantage based on volume. And there is enough volume of each type of patient of each type of customer. Then it may make sense for you to make that upfront investment into two different types of processes. Two different arrangements that are dedicated for each of those two customers, right? So that would be the cost benefit analysis that you would have to do. When you were looking at should we go in for a linear arrangement or should we go in for a jumbled arrangement. Because if you were to do a jumbled arrangement, you could share the activities. However, it might get expensive from the point of view of the customer. They have to adjust to not having a dedicated playroom as the wait area. Or a dedicated TV room as the wait area for adults. And that's the cost of the customers sort of have to face. And so you have to think of the implications of that. Well, let's take the second element of speed. So, if you recognize what we're going through here are things that customers care about things that organizations care about. We care about the cost of producing something. The cost of providing something to a customer. We also care about the speed at which we are able to deliver something to a customer. And the customer also cares about that obviously. So in terms of speed, if you have a linear arrangement. If it's in a straight line, the obvious implication is that it's going to go much quicker than it would if it was a jumbled kind of flow. So speed is going to be higher if it is in a linear arrangement. And jumbled, it's going to be more messy. What's also going to happen is that there will be some scheduling issues getting into the picture here. Because you'll have some adults that take longer for certain tasks and kids might take longer for some other tasks. And that's going to mess up the way that you have each of the patients going through. And if they're in mixed sequence, you're going to have issues of there being more waiting. So the speed is going to get affected. Now, let's take a look at the next one, flexibility. In a linear arrangement, you have less flexibility of being able to cater to different types of customers. Cater to different types of patients in this case. And that's by design, right? We've arranged the process for more efficiency. We've arranged the process for more speed. When it's a linear arrangement, you're sacrificing flexibility in that case. Whereas in a jumble flow, there's going to be more flexibility. If there are different needs of customers, they can be tackled in a different sequence through the jumble flow. And that's going to work fine. Quality. The next aspect that customers care about, that organizations care about. Now quality from a very broad perspective, if you were to take a look at it. The linear one is going to be focusing on speed. But might be sacrificing quality in one way. If everybody is being treated like a going through an assembly line. On the other hand, if you're thinking about there being specialists that are dealing with each type of patients. So you have people who are doctors and nurses who are trained not only to to deal with the ailments of kids. But also deal with the way the different kids react. How they are different from adults. That's going to give better quality, a better experience to the to the patients. But if you think about it from a different perspective, now quality may be affected. In the sense that if there is a problem that needs a broader outlook. So, if there's a teenager who's going through and has gone through the kids process, they are trained to deal with kids. And they might not have some of the broader knowledge that might exist if you are going through a jumble flow. And there are people trained in that jumble flow to deal with different types of ailments. So, having a process flow of one type. What you hopefully you're seeing is that it has implications on the other operations strategy elements. Of how they are going to have people trained for each different each of the different types of processes. Whether it's a jumble flow or a linear flow. Finally, customizability. Again, the linear one, the linear flow is not meant to be customizable. It's meant to be for a certain type of patient. And so customization is going to be difficult if you are going to ask for any kind of changes within a linear flow. Worse is when it's a jumble flow. They are trained to be more flexible. The people are trained to be more flexible, process is designed to be more flexible. The kind of training that people have got is more broader. So customization, they might be used to that. It might be possible for them easily. So you can see that a simple decision. Or what seems like a simple decision. Should be a jumbled or a linear flow of activities is going to have implications on what you're trying to achieve from a process. From an operation and and the customer experience, what they are able to get from an operation, from a process.
