Question

The local driver's license center handles the driver's license renewal application in three steps: the customer registers with the receptionist, the customer registers with the receptionist, and the recipient updates the customer's information in the database. This first step costs 2 per client Minute, then the customer visits one of the two cashiers to pay for the renewal fee, which takes 8 minutes for each customer, since multiple forms must be printed from the computer and signed by the customer, and the final customer visits the three license processing stations One of the pictures of the customer is photographed, the license to print this last step takes 15 minutes for each customer assuming unlimited demand What is the flow process in the customer every hour? Assuming unlimited demand, what is the new flow rate if the center adds the server to the bottleneck resource?

Answer 1

(a)   Flow rate is basically defined as the number of customers being served per hour or number of products being produced per hour. In the case of this question it will be the number of customers served per hour. Now our complete process here involves 3 individual processes such as:

Process 1: To update customer information in data base = 2 minutes per customer.

If we calculate in terms of number customers per hour it will be 60/2 = 30 customers per hour.

Thus, flow rate for this process will be 30 cutomers per hour.

Process 2: Payment of associated fees = 8 minutes per customer.

If we calculate in terms of customers per hour it will be 60/8 = 7(nearest integer) customers per hour.

Here in the question we are given that customer approaches one of the cashiers this means that since there are 2 cashiers the total flow rate for this individual process will be 7*2= 14 customers per hour.

Process 3: Taking the picture and printing of license: 15 minutes per customer.

If we calculate in terms of customers per hour it will be 60/15 = 4 customers per hour.

Here in the question we are given that customer approaches one of the cashiers this means that since there are 2 processing stations the total flow rate for this individual process will be 4*2= 8 customers per hour.

Now if we compare the flow rates for the 3 individual processes we will find that the lowest flow rate is 8 customers per hour for payment of associated fees. This is our bottleneck process and the system flow rate is always equal to the flow rate of bottleneck process so the flow rate of the process is 8 customers per hour.

(b) Now if we add 1 more server to our bottle neck process then its flow rate will change to 4*3= 12 customers per hour. Here we have done is we have just increased the number of cashiers from 2 to 3 and recalculated the flow rate here.

Now if we compare the flow rates of 3 processes we will find that the flow rate is minimum now for Updation of customer information in database at 12 customers per hour which will be now our bottleneck operation and flow rate for our system will be 12 customers per hour.