Wallgreens Operational Management
DS 850 - OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
Fall 2012
Table of Contents I. Executive Summary 2 II. The Company 3 III. Current Operations 8 A. Process flow for customers 8 B. Process flow for prescriptions 9 C. Technology used within the pharmacy 11 IV. Theoretical Analysis of Existing Design 12 V. Recommend Changes 18 VI. Works Cited 23 Appendix 24
I. Executive Summary
Walgreens Inc. operates approximately 8,000 retail pharmacies and employs 240,000 people. The company’s stores are divided into retail and pharmacy operations, with over 60% of sales coming from pharmacy operations. The following report focuses on Walgreens store #6363, located at 3770 N. Woodlawn in Wichita, KS. The research and analysis is based on interviews with Virginia Lytle, RPh, and Lori Parks, PharmD, both pharmacists at this location. Considerable data was also gathered on-site. Pharmacy operations contain two basic processes. The first is the prescription filling process, whereby the staff fills prescriptions submitted by phone, fax, electronic transfer, and hard copy. There are 4 phases of the filling process: order input, data verification, vial fill, and product check & storage. Target flow time for each phase is 3.5 minutes for a total flow time of 14 minutes. Analysis of data gathered shows that actual flow time for the final phase is 4.2 minutes and a bottleneck occurs at this station. The second process is the assistance of customers that arrive throughout the day at the counter or drive-thru. This process is not capacity limited, but high customer traffic during times of lower staff capacity does impact prescription filling flow times. The report’s key conclusion is that the current staffing scheme is set to match staff capacity with peak prescription demand but does not accommodate the peak demand for customer traffic. Staffing schedules drop from 2 pharmacists to 1 just as customer traffic begins to peak. This results in capacity constraints to the filling
Fall 2012
Table of Contents I. Executive Summary 2 II. The Company 3 III. Current Operations 8 A. Process flow for customers 8 B. Process flow for prescriptions 9 C. Technology used within the pharmacy 11 IV. Theoretical Analysis of Existing Design 12 V. Recommend Changes 18 VI. Works Cited 23 Appendix 24
I. Executive Summary
Walgreens Inc. operates approximately 8,000 retail pharmacies and employs 240,000 people. The company’s stores are divided into retail and pharmacy operations, with over 60% of sales coming from pharmacy operations. The following report focuses on Walgreens store #6363, located at 3770 N. Woodlawn in Wichita, KS. The research and analysis is based on interviews with Virginia Lytle, RPh, and Lori Parks, PharmD, both pharmacists at this location. Considerable data was also gathered on-site. Pharmacy operations contain two basic processes. The first is the prescription filling process, whereby the staff fills prescriptions submitted by phone, fax, electronic transfer, and hard copy. There are 4 phases of the filling process: order input, data verification, vial fill, and product check & storage. Target flow time for each phase is 3.5 minutes for a total flow time of 14 minutes. Analysis of data gathered shows that actual flow time for the final phase is 4.2 minutes and a bottleneck occurs at this station. The second process is the assistance of customers that arrive throughout the day at the counter or drive-thru. This process is not capacity limited, but high customer traffic during times of lower staff capacity does impact prescription filling flow times. The report’s key conclusion is that the current staffing scheme is set to match staff capacity with peak prescription demand but does not accommodate the peak demand for customer traffic. Staffing schedules drop from 2 pharmacists to 1 just as customer traffic begins to peak. This results in capacity constraints to the filling
Cited: Walgreen Co. (2012). Walgreens: Retrieved October 29, 2012 from http://www.walgreens.com. Walgreen Co. (2012). Walgreens 2012 Annual Report: Retrieved October 29, 2012 from http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/WAG/2145680621x0x608988/5A4CA423- 70A4-46A7-876E-0EA1FBDF14AA/WAG_2012_AR_lo.pdf.