Southern Care Hospital (SCH) is a large, non-profit regional hospital located in the southeast. Several years ago it contracted with the healthcare division of a major medical equipment supplier to provide Six Sigma training to a group of its hospital employees. Since that time, numerous waves of Green Belts and Black Belts have been trained including people across all job ranks and representing most departments. Green Belt training entails two weeks of formal in-class training while Black Belt training entails the two weeks of Green Belt training plus an additional four weeks of training. Both Green Belt and Black Belt training require the completion of a Six Sigma project in addition to the in-class training.

One challenge currently facing SCH is significant levels of dissatisfaction from the medical staff regarding the five day lead time it currently averages in the nuclear medicine department to turn around the results of stress tests. In this case, “lead time” is defined as the elapsed time from when the stress test is ordered by a physician until the time when a radiologist from the nuclear medicine department signs off on the test results. Stress tests are used to determine the amount of stress the heart can endure before either an abnormal rhythm or insufficient flow of blood to the heart develops. Typically, the stress test is administered by increasing the level of difficulty as a patient walks on a treadmill or rides a stationary bike. During the stress test vital statistics are collected and monitored, including the patient’s heart rate and blood pressure. Collecting the vital statistics it-self takes significant time. Discussions with the medical staff indicate that they desire maximum lead times of a day or at max a day and a half.
All employees working in the nuclear medicine department are unionized workers! Last year during union negotiations, the nuclear medicine union had a decisive win over the physicians union and there is a growing tension between them. While, conflict between physicians and radiologists is increasingly becoming the gossip topic for all SCH staff, the medical staff is completely frustrated and has reached out to you for help.

You have been hired as an independent contactor to manage this project focusing on reducing the lead times associated with receiving the results of stress tests. The president of SCH always regarded your Project Management skills very highly. Based on your past experience with similar projects, you have already identified 20 major WBS components that would be critical for the success of this project. SCH’s steering committee has further granted you permission to select up to 4 team members from the available six sigma resource pool to staff the project. However the expectation is that the project will be completed within 3 months and not exceed $60,000. You can assume that all indirect project costs are out of scope of this budget.

Table 1 provides relevant background information on the 12 people currently trained to work on your project. All resources are available to the project only on a part-time basis since they have their day jobs as the first priority. Supporting a project is always in addition to performing their normal job assignments. The table lists the employee name, job title, level of education, years of work experience, Six Sigma rank ( i.e., Green Belt or