State Automobile License Renewal

$($Modified from Heizer and Bender$)$

Henry Coupe, the Director of License Renewal in the Ministry of Transportation$-$ Ontario, is attempting to restructure the whole process of driving license renewal. He asks you to analyze one branch and use it as a model for the rest of Ontario.

You select to analyze the Downsview branch, which is known to be cooperative and willing to experiment, and is also close to the head$-$office.

After some observations and discussions with staff, you conclude that each application for license renewal is a separate process in the following order:

$\backslash$table$[[$Step$,$Activity,$\backslash$table$[[$Time$],[($Seconds$)]],\backslash$table$[[$Pre$],[$Req$],[$step$]]],[1,\backslash$table$[[$Review renewal application$],[$for correctness$]],15,-],[2,$Process and record payment,$30,1],[3,\backslash$table$[[$Check file for violations$],[$and restrictions$]],60,2],[4,$Conduct eye test,$40,3],[5,$Photograph applicant,$20,4],[6,$Issue temporary license,$30,5]]$

You find that each step is assigned to a different person. You see immediately that work is unevenly divided among clerks and that one of them tends to shortcut her task to keep up with the others.

Assume that all the six steps should be carried out in sequence: $1,2,3,4,5,6$

Questions:

Draw a flow diagram of all six steps $($each step in a different block, as shown in the PowerPoint slide$)$

What is the bottleneck step?

What is the maximum number of applications per hour that can be handled by the present configuration of the process?

How many applications can be processed per hour if a second clerk is added to the bottleneck step?