Tom Guthknecht

Integral Process Design Tom Guthknecht

Professorial Dissertation from the year 2010 in the subject Nursing / Foster Care Management / Social Services, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (Department für Architektur), language: English, abstract: INTEGRAL PROCESS DESIGN [IPD]: ABSTRACT Improved Planning and Operations for Complex Buildings Starting Point: Health care systems throughout the world face financial collapse. Costs must be reduced. This study shows a significant cost reduction potential of hospital running costs which account for ca.25-30% of health care budgets in many OECD countries. (CDC, 2009) Goals: The goal of Integral Process Design is to liberate sufficient resources due to operational optimization so that the entire construction and refurbishment budget for hospitals could be free of charge. Avoiding dangerous assumption traps with IPD: Today's planning information is based on too optimistic efficacy assumptions which are not coherent with reality in hospitals. Planning has to be more realistic to avoid dangerous 'Assumption Traps' which lead to misdirected investments. Tracing imposed inefficiencies with Grey Performance Analysis: IPD focuses on externally imposed inefficiencies by targeting avoidable unnecessary work called 'Grey Performance'. Architectural consequences of IPD: IPD significantly influences the organizational structure, functional layout and architectural planning of complex buildings. Health facility architecture must change its focus from optimal use of surfaces to optimal use of human resources. Enabling more quality through additional revenues: More revenues are possible by surrounding building design with business design already in the early project conceptualization.