Resources Optimisation in New Hospital Central Kitchen Design – A Discrete Event Simulation Approach

This paper describes a simulation study to design the workflow and improve the process efficiency of a hospital central kitchen. The scope of the study includes reducing unnecessary activities and operators’ movement, minimize traffic crossing in kitchen, increase employee productivity, and halal & non-halal food segmentation. Simulation models developed in the commercial simulation software Flexism are used in this study to verify the current design by logistics consultants and end-users to ensure that the central kitchen workflow meets the design guidelines and service levels recommended by the Ministry of Health Singapore. Experimental results from the simulation models are analyzed and recommendations are made to the hospital management for resource optimization planning.