Time process study with UML

We propose a new business-process analysis approach, Time Process Study (TPS), which comprises process analysis and time and motion studies (TMS). TPS offsets weaknesses of TMS; the cost of field studies and the difficulties in applying them to tasks whose time span differs from those of usual tasks.

In TPS, the job procedures are first displayed using a unified modeling language (UML). Next, time and manpower for each procedure are studied through interviews and TMS, and the information is appended to the UML diagram. We applied TPS in the case of a hospital-based cancer registry (HCR) of a university hospital to clarify the work procedure and the time required, and investigated TPS's availability.

Meetings for the study were held once a month from July to September in 2008, and one inquirer committed a total of eight hours to the hospital survey. TPS revealed that HCR consisted of three tasks and 14 functions. The registration required 123 hours/month/person, the quality control required 6.5 hours/ 6 months/person and filing data into the population-based cancer registry required 0.5 hours/6 months/person. Of the total tasks involved in registration, 116.5 hours/month/person were undertaken by a registration worker, which shows the necessity of employing one full-time staff.

With TPS, it is straightforward to share the concept among the study-team because the job procedure is first displayed using UML. Therefore, it requires a few workload to conduct TMS and interview. The obtained results were adopted for the review of staff assignment of HCR by Japanese government.