De La Salle University

College of Engineering
Department of Industrial Engineering

In partial fulfilment
Of the requirements for
DYNA1 Lab

Case #1:
The Flu


Submitted by:
Acuna, Luis Miguel
Nazareno, Janina Renee

Section ER1
June 02, 2014
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I. Present System
Every year, the elementary and high school schools in Hometown have been hit by a severe outbreak of influenza.
The board of education is interested in taking action to lessen the annual impacts of the flu. Several policies have
been proposed:
Closing the school before the flu virus reaches a peak
Providing free vaccinations to teachers residing in the school district
Provide free vaccinations to children residing in the school district
Or doing nothing
Any of these options could prove costly both in real dollars and in terms of teacher or student time missed from
school. In addition, the vaccinations are known to have some adverse side effects for some portion of the
population. It has proven medically that this particular flu strain last for 5 days.
Before making a decision on how to deal with their annual flu crises, the Board decided to gather some data
concerning the severity and timing of the problem. Unfortunately, the board discovered that no systematic records
of the severity of the flu have been kept on a system-wide basis. The only available records are those of Mrs.
Stewart, the school nurse at the Maplewood School. Early in September, she began to notice that many students
were staying home from school. When they returned, they said that they had the flu. Being a conscientious nurse,
Mrs. Stewart had kept a careful record of recoveries shown in the table below.
Table 1. Number of students who recovered
DATE
NUMBER OF
RECOVERIES
DATE
NUMBER OF
RECOVERIES
DATE
NUMBER OF
RECOVERIES
Sept 4 0 Sept 18 74 Oct 2 5
5 0 19 17 3 1
6 1 20 14 4 1
7 3 21 11 5 1
8 6 22 9 6 1
11 55 25 18 9 3
12 37 26 4 10 0
13 39 27 3 11 0
14 38 28 3 12 0
15 38 29 2 13 0
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II. Assumptions
The student would be cured exactly 5 days after contracting the flu.
Once the student contracts the flu, it is already considered his first day of absence.
All recorded absences were caused by the flu virus.
III. Analysis

Figure 1. Graph if the original data provided
Figure 1 shows the graph of the data provided by the nurse. Due to the lack of data, the graph appeared to be
distorted. The data gathered by the nurse was incomplete because it did not include the recoveries over the
weekend - which resulted why there is a peak at the beginning of every school week, most evidently on September
18.
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Figure 2. Adjusted graph of the original data
The data would appear less erratic, because there would be no spike of recoveries during the first day of the week.
Assuming that the number of recoveries recorded on Mondays are divided equally to three (Saturday, Sunday, and
Monday).

Figure 3. Number of students who got sick vs number of students who recovered
Figure 3 shows that the first student who got the flu, started getting sick on September 1. The graph also shows
the increase in the number of students who got sick on the succeeding days. Moreover, during the second week of
September is where the school recorded the most number of absentees - this is also when the students started
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getting cured, which resulted in a significantly less number of absentees and recoveries during the following
weeks.

Figure 4. Cumulative of sick students per day
As shown in figure 4, the highest number of sick students that was recorded was on September 11, with 177
students. The cumulative number of students were computed by adding the number of sick students per day, and
simultaneously subtracting the number of recovered students on the same day. (See figure 5)

Figure 5. Computation of sick students per day
IV. Conclusion & Recommendation
Considering that schools are only open five days a week, it is completely understandable why the data collected
did not have information of recoveries over the weekend. However, the missing data led to having a distorted
graph.
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There are other instances when the data collected by an analyst would also produce a distorted graph. An example
of this would be a set of data gathered regarding the production of school uniforms. A sudden increase usually
happens a few months or weeks before school starts on June, and then goes back to its constant production.
Another example of a distorted graph is when a set of data has missing information, such as the one gathered in
this case.
A total of 384 students got sick over the epidemic. Figure 3 shows the daily report of the number students who
started getting sick and the number of students who already recovered from the flu, on the assumption that the
number of students who recovered on Mondays includes the total number of students who recovered over the
weekend. Figure 4, on the other hand, shows the daily report of the number of absentees. This graph shows that
most of the students are sick during the middle of September, with 177 students being sick on September 11.
We recommend that the next time the flu season kicks in, the school should also document the dates the students
started becoming absent for class, that way, they can also estimate when the student will return to classes.
To solve this flu epidemic, the board could provide vaccinations to the students because they may still contract the
flu virus outside the school if they were only required to stay at home during the outbreak. According to medical
experts, flu vaccinations last about one year, so providing vaccinations prior to flu season would immune all the
students from the influenza virus for one school year.