Rod Simmons is a civil service employee, managing a state Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) office. The DMV office issues annual auto registrations, renews driver’s licenses, and conducts driver examinations. The office is organized into departments, each with a supervisor reporting to Rod. The Vehicle Registration Department has eight clerks. The Motor Vehicle Operator License Department is staffed with four clerks and four examiners.

Rod has become increasingly concerned because documented taxpayer complaints directed at his office have been increasing over the past year. This has recently come to the attention of his superiors at the state capitol, who have begun putting pressure on him to stop the complaints—somehow. Rod is not sure at this point how to go about it. He knows that it would be better to look at the available data to try to find the cause, or causes, rather than just giving a “pep talk” to his employees. He starts by assembling the following:

• The office handles about 35,000 license or registration transactions annually.
• Workforce history:
  • Nine of the 12 clerks have been with the office for five years or more. Three were added during the last year.
  • Two of the examiners have over five years’ tenure, while the other two have less than one year.
• Office work schedule and hours available:
  • Office hours are 8:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. with one hour for lunch, Monday through Friday.
  • Lunch hours are staggered for clerks and examiners, half from 11:00 a.m. until noon, and the other half from noon until 1:00 p.m. (By doing this, the office is open for business nine hours per day.)
  • Clerk hours available/year: 23,000
  • Examiner hours available/year: 7,800
  • Supervisor hours available/year: 3,800
• Procedures:
  • A driver’s license must be renewed every three years during the driver’s birth month.
  • Vehicle registration must be renewed annually within the 12th month of the current registration.
• Total complaints for the last two years:

Month	Complaints This Year	Complaints Last Year
January	14	6
February	10	7
March	14	5
April	20	10
May	19	9
June	21	10
July	27	13
August	31	16
September	36	19
October	24	13
November	28	14
December	30	12
Totals	274	134

• Total taxpayer complaints by category for the current year:

Berating by examiners	21
Clerks ignoring customers (taxpayers)	35
Incompetence	33
Long waits in line	75
Rudeness	60
All others	50

Instruction:

Describe the two widely used models for problem solving and explain the creative process as it relates to decision making and problem solving.