The Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), Minnesota, has decided to re-engineer it
ID: 364226 • Letter: T
Question
The Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), Minnesota, has decided to re-engineer its operations so that, "it is possible for a customer to obtain a driver's license in fifteen minutes". Due to your expertise in Operations Management, they have hired you as a consultant to help them redesign the process. After studying the process extensively (compiling a lot of billable hours), you find that the current process involves the following steps:
Task Task Description Duration (in minutes)
1 Receive Application and Create Computer File 3
2 Check computer file for violations/prior record 6
3 Perform eye test 5
4 Photograph applicant 3
5 Receive Payment and Issue license 4
Task 1 must precede and Task 5 must follow all other tasks. Tasks 3 and 4 cannot be done simultaneously as the customer is needed for both. Task 2 can be completed without any interaction with the customer. The current DMV process, however, is staffed with five people, each performing one of the above tasks, and the customers progressed in a fixed sequence through each of the above tasks 1-5, without any waiting between the tasks.
Answer the following questions without hiring any additional staff.
(a) Draw a process flow diagram of the existing process (tasks are performed in sequence, one at a time), and identify the bottleneck. How long does it take for a customer to get a license in the existing system (in minutes) (= throughput time /flow time)? What is the system capacity (in customers/hour)?
(b) Without hiring any additional staff, redesign the DMV process to reach the desired objective, "to obtain a driver's license in fifteen minutes". Draw a process flow diagram of the redesigned process. What is the throughput time in minutes, and capacity in customers/hour? [hint: customer is not needed in Task 2]
(c) Just when you are about to present your recommendations to the DMV, you recall from your class that splitting tasks may result in even better time. So you go back and investigate the process further only to discover that Task 1 involved grouping of two tasks: Task 1a (Submitting Application lasting 1 minute), and Task 1b (Creating Computer File lasting 2 minutes). You also establish that only Task 1a needs to precede all other tasks. Task 1b needs to precede only Tasks 2 and 5. Furthermore, Task 1a can be performed by the customer dropping off his/her application into a slot - without requiring a DMV employee to receive the application. The submitted application can then be directly handled by the employee performing Task 1b without any interaction with the customer (during Task 1b).
Using the above information, draw a process flow diagram to reduce the throughput time further and identify the bottleneck(s) [note: cross-training is not allowed yet]. What is the throughput time in minutes? What is the capacity of your new design? [hint: separate tasks with and without customers in different paths of process flow]
(d) Both the DMV officials and the partners at your consulting firm are very impressed with your progress. In an effort to secure more billable hours, the partners suggested to the DMV that you could come up with an even better design that increases the system capacity further, without sacrificing throughput time. The DMV officials agree to this proposal in the spirit of continuous improvement.
Develop a layout that would allow you to maximize customers per hour with the same number of employees, and without compromising the throughput time in part (c) [note: cross-training is allowed now, but limit cross-training to no more than two tasks (per employee) and avoid unnecessary cross-training]. Draw a flow diagram. What are the throughput time and capacity of this new design. [hint: use cross-training now; the objective is no longer to reduce throughput time, but to increase capacity]
Explanation / Answer
It is mentioned that at present the process flow is in the sequence 1--2--3--4--5
Task1 takes 3 minutes, task2 takes 6 minutes, task3 takes 5 minutes, task4 takes 3 minutes, and task5 takes 4 minutes, therefore total time for all tasks is 21 minutes.
From above, it is clear that time between successive customers to leave is 6 minutes or in other words output is after every six minutes.
Capacity for task1 is 20(60/3) per hour, Task2 can serve only 10(60/6) per hour, Task3 capacity is 12(60/5) per hour, Task4 can serve 20(60/3) per hour, and Task5 has capacity 15(60/4) per hour.
Therefore, the bottleneck is Task2 which restrict 10 per hour.
As mentioned Task2 does not require presence of customer, therefore customer may move to Task3 after Task1 and then to Task4. As mentioned Task5 is the last that requires completion of first four.
Revised process flow with throughput/ flow time of 15 minutes is as follows:
Task1 Task2 & Task3 Task4 Task5
With correction about Sr.No.
Once again in the steady state, the output is restricted to 10 per hour due to Task2 having processing time of 6 minutes.
Task 1 Task 2 Task 3 Task 4 Task 5 In Out In Out In Out In Out In Out 0 3 3 9 9 14 14 17 17 21 3 6 9 15 15 20 20 23 23 27 6 9 15 21 21 26 26 29 29 33 9 12 21 27 27 32 32 35 35 39Related Questions
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