My boss wants to know what our saturation point is as far as how many cutters 
do we need, embedders, and coverslippers. I called NSH and they had only old 
stats. We are in a hospital setting that does a surgical load of about 55,000 
cases a year. We do approximately 18-27 Inpatients and 200 +outpatients. The 
block count runs at an average of 500 blocks a day. Currently there are 3 
FTe's, 4 PTE's with several of them working almost all day. We have 2 
embedders, 4 cutters and 1 coverslipper. There are presently 3 automated 
microtomes, a sakura coverslipper and a Hacker Stainer that is linear. We are 
to have 95% of the surgicals  out by 10 a.m.
These same people are also responsible for special stains, helping the 
coverslipper while she does other things and myself with administrative 
duties and qc'ing.
Now how do I figure what is our saturation point? We need and require quality 
work and are stretching the quality due to quantity.
 I do know that we could use a cutter for every 100 blocks, 3 embedders for 
500 blocks>letting that one person after, help the coverslipper.
Does anyone have a formula or any ideas on the subject.Please respond ASAP, I 
have to have this information soon. We are looking to the future and a growth 
spurt.
Thank you.
Marilyn