Professional Documents
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Fitness Plus is a full service health and sports club in Greensboro, North Carolina. The club
provides a range of facilities and services to support three primary activities as follows :
Issues :
Fitness Activities Recreation Activities Relaxation Activities
people/class) week)
6 tennis courts
workout room
consists of 9 stair
steppers, 6 treadmills,
aerobics machines, 2
1 climber (total 29
equipments)
Due to growth in membership and increased in demand, Fitness Plus become congested.
The case study will focus on the current capacity issues of Fitness Plus and the decision
Focus for the capacity solution will be on the three areas of customer complaints that is
New competitors in the area include YMCA (offers a full range of services at a low cost),
OASIS (caters to members above 16) and Gold’s Gym (weight and cardiovascular
training only)
1. What method would you use to measure the capacity of Fitness Plus
The suitable method to measure capacity of Fitness Plus is by using the input measures
because the club is a flexible flow process and members can choose their own workouts.
At current time with current flow of members, Fitness Plus has large periods of operating
This caused flow issues including bottleneck in more popular workout areas. We can
assume that members are using more than one area of fitness centre during each visit.
Currently, approximately 80 members per hour enter the club during peak hours but we
From the calculation of capacity cushion in year 2000 and 2005, it shows that Fitness
per member)
Current capacity measured as inputs for nautilus, cardiovascular, and aerobics fitness
Capacity cushion is the amount reserve capacity a process uses to handle sudden
by which the average utilization falls below 100%. Large cushions appropriate when
demand varies and uncertain where in this case, demand on some days of the week is
To get an 83% capacity cushion like in 2000, with an average flow of 25 members per
hour of year 2005, the capacity would have to be increased to 141 members per hour.
Special consideration should focus on the cardiovascular area where demand is over
capacity at peak times. Because of the limited amount of land at the current facility,
Focus at the bottlenecks areas which are aerobics, Cardiovascular and Nautilus. This
strategy implies the limitation of time for these 3 areas during peak demand.
Continued tracking of member usage of facility services and the new membership
will lower the repair cost and will maximize the usage of its services life.
Improve the current business and fulfilment of these needs, targeted analysis will be
completed.
Need to look into four steps to arrive at the proper capacity decision. Those steps are:
Along with the current situation, Fitness Plus has three long term alternatives
o No expansion of existing facilities and wait to see what market bear in the
current site
o Fixed costs
o Reduced construction costs
o For the second alternative, minor expansion of the existing facility, the limited
o Third alternative, the expansion strategy, is the best choice for the long term
strategy. It is because this strategy keeps the Fitness Plus ahead of customer
demand.
Finally, the Fitness Plus needs to announce its long term expansion plans to prevent
the competitors to do the same thing. It also will increase customer’s loyalty.
3. How would you link the capacity decision being made by Fitness Plus to other types
of operating decisions?
The service system has multiple lines and mixed arrangement of facilities involving
customers with individual service needs. Current practise or priority rules of Fitness Plus
The purpose of facility to satisfy more/current customer base and attract new customers
Fitness Plus must consider alternatives to customer flow such as assigned customers to
Members have opportunities to take advantage of other, less popular areas while they wait
Based on designated time, customer can have gap to return to Nautilus or Cardiovascular
Have a set time limit for their workout on this equipment (during peak time only)
The scheduling of time for each employee with aerobic classes where a sign up sheet or
reservation system for aerobic class scheduling in order to help prevent customer
Reservation system can be as an excellent tracking tool to determine what is the most popular
Other solution is to stagger the employees shift to eliminate excess staff members working at
Fitness Plus can enhance the relationship between the employees and customers by improving