RE: When is a system not a system?

["Raul Butland" <raulbutland@hotmail.com>]

Hi Everybody,

I hardly participate, but I think the answer is the following:

The system can be charted, however, you should bear in mind that there are many common causes of variation and special causes of variation which may hinder the driver from reaching the patient within 8 minutes. If you are going to statistically follow such a system, you are going to need to exclude the special causes of variation which the driver can't do anything about. Holding the driver responsible for not making it to the patient in time is unfair if a special cause of variation was at fault and not the driver (such as a traffic accident blocking the driver's route). Therefore, you will need to explicitly track the common causes of variation (such as the lead time from initial notification at the switchboard to the minute of ambulance departure). Once they are known, then an improvement to the system can be attempted by improving the processes involved in the system.

Dr. Raul L. Butland
Strategic English Learning
Sohren, Germany
Tel. (049) 6543-504338