The Profamilia Family Planning Program, Colombia : an economic perspective

This paper evaluates the Profamilia's outreach effort of 1986. Profamilia is an affiliate of the International Planned Parenthood Federation and provides more than 60 percent of Colombia's family planning services. This paper focuses around the question of Profamilia's ability to provide more protection with the same resources. The authors found that: (i) operations tend to be constrained by limited personnel and supplies; (ii) the labor costs and unit costs of contraception are lower in the outreach and clinical programs, which can be expanded with available infrastructure; (iii) the clinical and outreach program is the least cost-effective because of the higher cost of sterilization; (iv) more resources should be targeted to areas where there are proportionately more mothers and where people are better educated; (v) experienced and married workers sell more in the outreach program thantheir junior unmarried colleagues; and (vi) in both the clinical and surgical programs, output would increase if there were proportionately more nurses and fewer doctors.Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Adolescent Health,Pharmaceuticals&Pharmacoeconomics,Reproductive Health,ICT Policy and Strategies

Methodology to Cultivating Hand Hygiene Compliance in Healthcare Facilities

Studies have indicated a concern for the level of hand hygiene compliance throughout hospital facilities. The disturbing levels has caused alarm on whether the lack of hand hygiene practice affects the overall healthcare provided to patients. There is also a growing concern about healthcare workers and patients potentially spreading nosocomial infections through frequent contact with patients. Evidence proves that nosocomial infections are an apparent problem that need immediate attention. Medical officials and healthcare leaders are taking steps to improve the level of hand hygiene compliance and minimizing cases of nosocomial infections by implementing initiatives aimed towards pushing the practice of hand hygiene to the forefront. All healthcare workers that come in contact with patients should view improving hand hygiene and reducing the level of noncompliance as a top priority. Approaches such as ensuring healthcare workers have easy access to hand hygiene materials and resources are a steps toward improving adherence to hand hygiene practice. Nonetheless, there are many other strategies that can contribute to the goal of increasing hand hygiene compliance and decreasing the risk factors related to cross infections. Numerous studies were conducted to measure the effectiveness of different strategies used to reduce the level of noncompliance and promote hand hygiene in healthcare facilities. Many of the interventions conducted succeeded in its attempts to implement hand hygiene as common practice. Several of the studies took different approaches toward implementing hand hygiene practice as standard protocol when in contact with patients. Although different approaches were taken, the main objective for all of them was the same

MRP, JIT, and OPT: A Comparison on the Production Floor

In order to compete in manufacturing, industry realizes it must work more efficiently with its resources. Three manufacturing techniques have been developed to assist industry in this challenge --MRP, JIT, and OPT. This paper compares these three techniques. It concentrates on the factors that affect production after vendor materials are in-house. A brief discussion of some of the implementation difficulties a company may face during the transition to a new philosophy is also addressed. Finally, a case study of a low volume, highly technical military project is evaluated and analyzed

CHANGE-READY MPC SYSTEMS AND PROGRESSIVE MODELING: VISION, PRINCIPLES, AND APPLICATIONS

The last couple of decades have witnessed a level of fast-paced development of new ideas, products, manufacturing technologies, manufacturing practices, customer expectations, knowledge transition, and civilization movements, as it has never before. In today\u27s manufacturing world, change became an intrinsic characteristic that is addressed everywhere. How to deal with change, how to manage it, how to bind to it, how to steer it, and how to create a value out of it, were the key drivers that brought this research to existence. Change-Ready Manufacturing Planning and Control (CMPC) systems are presented as the first answer. CMPC characteristics, change drivers, and some principles of Component-Based Software Engineering (CBSE) are interwoven to present a blueprint of a new framework and mind-set in the manufacturing planning and control field, CMPC systems. In order to step further and make the internals of CMPC systems/components change-ready, an enabling modeling approach was needed. Progressive Modeling (PM), a forward-looking multi-disciplinary modeling approach, is developed in order to modernize the modeling process of today\u27s complex industrial problems and create pragmatic solutions for them. It is designed to be pragmatic, highly sophisticated, and revolves around many seminal principles that either innovated or imported from many disciplines: Systems Analysis and Design, Software Engineering, Advanced Optimization Algorisms, Business Concepts, Manufacturing Strategies, Operations Management, and others. Problems are systemized, analyzed, componentized; their logic and their solution approaches are redefined to make them progressive (ready to change, adapt, and develop further). Many innovations have been developed in order to enrich the modeling process and make it a well-assorted toolkit able to address today\u27s tougher, larger, and more complex industrial problems. PM brings so many novel gadgets in its toolbox: function templates, advanced notation, cascaded mathematical models, mathematical statements, society of decision structures, couplers--just to name a few. In this research, PM has been applied to three different applications: a couple of variants of Aggregate Production Planning (APP) Problem and the novel Reconfiguration and Operations Planning (ROP) problem. The latest is pioneering in both the Reconfigurable Manufacturing and the Operations Management fields. All the developed models, algorithms, and results reveal that the new analytical and computational power gained by PM development and demonstrate its ability to create a new generation of unmatched large scale and scope system problems and their integrated solutions. PM has the potential to be instrumental toolkit in the development of Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems. In terms of other potential applications domain, PM is about to spark a new paradigm in addressing large-scale system problems of many engineering and scientific fields in a highly pragmatic way without losing the scientific rigor

Applying Lean to the AC-130 Maintenance Process for the Royal Saudi Air Force

The ideas expressed in this research come from the researchers experiences working in the AC-130 maintenance squadron in the Royal Saudi Air Force. The AC-130 maintenance process is not currently being used as effectively as it could be to make AC-130 fully mission capable. That can be done by improving communication, reducing distances needed to move or transport anything during the maintenance process and by efficient use of the available qualified workforces, tools and equipment. Consideration is given to applying an existing management technique to the Royal Saudi Air Forces AC-130 Maintenance Squadrons. The selected technique is the Lean management approach. The research suggests that Lean can help and improve AC-130 maintenance process in the Royal Saudi Air Force for several reasons. One of the most important reasons of using Lean is that it will get rid of waste and measure the process improvement of C-130s. If Lean is implemented, there will be reduction of (65 -96 ) on the cycle time. The bottom line benefit that the research suggests is to minimize the time required to maintain the aircraft C-130 and improve the availability rate

Parameters\u27 analysis of 3D random stacking palletization

Palletization is a very important element of production, distribution and warehousing activities. The 3D random stacking palletization method is based on volume utilization instead of surface area optimization. Random stacking provides interlocking among the boxes and hence it improves the stability of the pallet load. Volumetric Pallet Utilization is normally the prime concern of any palletization process, with Work in Process and Palletization time being also important. This research uses data generated from a previous heuristic to establish mathematical relationships between the three mentioned performance indices and also three additional indirect variables, namely: Total Number of Sub Volumes, Partitioned Remaining Volume Load Capacity and Total Zero Count. An Estimation method for Volumetric Pallet Utilization is also developed by using the established mathematical relationships

High-mix, low-volume lean manufacturing implementation and lot size optimization at an aerospace OEM

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; in conjunction with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT, 2003.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references (p. 97-103).by Jonathan M. Rheaume.S.M