REDESIGNING YOUR LABORATORY ON A PC - NEW TOOLS FOR SIMULATION-BASED WORKFLOW ANALYSIS

A set of PC tools has been developed by the authors to make computer s imulation accessible for clinical laboratories planning to restructure or to automate their operations. The new tools include modules for th e generation of specific workflow files (requests and arrival rates) a nd for the immediate visualization and assessment of experimental resu lts. These two tools cooperate with a simulation package called Simlab (R), which the authors developed earlier. Simlab describes the design of any kind of laboratory in terms of work ureas, staffing, instrument ation, tubes, tests, and routings and produces useful performance data for a. given experimental scenario. These performance data include ho urly utilization patterns for each individual staff member and piece o f equipment, hourly sample queue patterns in front of each workplace, and turnaround times for stat and routine orders. Simlab in combinatio n with the new tools is used for the authors' technology-based service s in laboratory workflow analysis. An example can be downloaded from t he authors' Web site at http://www.trillium.de. (C) 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.