Fitness Plus - Health and Sports Club - Greensboro, North Carolina

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: fitness, recreation and relaxation. Due to growth in membership and large shifts in demand, Fitness Plus has become overcrowded. As a result, gym members were experiencing an unsatisfactory workout due to unavailability of equipment.

Studies were completed on exciting members, finding that the average person works out for sixty minutes per session. Fitness Plus is faced with to possibilities to solve the current capacity issues. First, Fitness Plus can expand the existing facility; the expansion would take four months to complete. Secondly, Fitness Plus could choose to open a new facility, which would take six months to complete.

Limits should be placed on the three areas of customer complaints: Nautilus, cardiovascular and aerobics. Peak demand is for three hours daily, 4pm to 7pm. Capacity planning is complex because one member can use al three of the high demand areas and even use these areas more than once.

Fitness Plus is a flexible flow process. During time of peak hours capacity is capped in multiple areas of the facility. The number of members serviced over a given period of time, would be an appropriate measure of capacity. The service delivery process at Fitness Plus is a menu-driven process where each member chooses from a range of services the club provides. The full capacity causes bottlenecks to surface in popular use areas. During peak periods, eighty members per hour check in to use the facilities, but Fitness Plus is unsure of the areas these members specifically visit. Therefore, capacity should be measured by use of the nautilus, cardiovascular and aerobics areas during the peak periods. To measure the usage, members will need to swipe their member card to enter the three areas, thereby logging the number of people who enter. Capacity must be measured for each service item provided. In some areas of the club, such as aerobics, this may be an "output measure" of capacity, such as the number of members per hour that can do aerobics. In other areas, such as the Nautilus equipment, the measure may be an "input measure," the number of machines available.

Short-term problems are that gaps exist for customer demand. Fitness Plus needs to collect more in-depth usage of their equipment and the various fitness rooms. Fitness Plus also needs to focus on the activities and services that are not being used to effective capacity. Competitiveness within the industry has increased. Two competitors have opened fitness centers within fifteen minutes of the Fitness Plus facility. Fitness Plus offers more at their facilities than the other two centers.

Another problem is the waiting line that results from bottlenecks. The priority of the facility is first come, first served. Fitness Plus should consider assigning