State Automobile License Renewal Sue Long Chow, the new manager of a metropolitan branch office of the Singapore state department of motor vehicles

·        State Automobile License Renewal

Sue Long Chow, the new manager of a metropolitan branch office of the Singapore state department of motor vehicles is interested in redesigning the driver's license renewal system of operations to handle a greater load of renewal applications. Examining the current system, she discovered that each customer followed a fixed sequence of steps with the times given in seconds as noted below. The variability in the processing time for the jobs is very small, so she assumed that the jobs were deterministic.

Step (Job)                   Activity                                                          Time (in seconds)

1                     Review application for correctness                                                    30

2                     Process and record payment                                                              30

3                     Check file for violations & restrictions                                             60

4                     Conduct eye test                                                                                40

5                     Photograph applicant                                                                         20

6                     Issue temporary license                                                                      30

Sue notes that clerks, paid $6 an hour, performed all the steps except the last two. (Each job was performed by one clerk, and each clerk performed only one job in the current setup.) A photographer was employed at $9.00 an hour to photograph the applicants (step 5), and by state policy, the temporary license was issued by a uniformed state trooper paid $8.00 an hour.

The sequence of steps performed has some restrictions. Reviewing the application for correctness must be performed first before any other step is taken. Furthermore, the issuing of the temporary license must be the final step.

1.     In the license renewal serial system, identify the bottleneck activity, and note the system capacity in applications per hour.

2.     How many more applications can be processed per hour if a second clerk is added to check for violations? If applications arrived at the rate of 40/hour, what would be the capacity utilization of the various steps and the system?

3.     Assume that clerks can be cross-trained to perform all the first four tasks. If the additional clerk described in step 2 (five in total) is used, what is the maximum capacity the system can achieve per hour?