Suppose a bank clears checks drawn on customers’ checking accounts by using the following process:
Receive checks to Short checks by banks to Ship checks to check clearing house
a) If the capacity for receiving checks is 1000 checks per hour, for sorting checks is 800 checks per hour, and for shipping checks is 1200 per hour, what is the capacity of the system to process checks?
b) If the flow rate is an average of 600 checks per hour and there are an average of 200 checks in the system, what is the average throughput time of checks?
c) What could be done to decrease the throughput time
Capacity of the system to process checks
Sample Solution
The capacity of the system to process checks is the minimum of the three capacities:- a) Capacity of the system to process checks
- b) Average throughput time of checks
- c) Decreasing the throughput time
- Increase the capacity of the system. This could be done by adding more resources to the system, such as more employees or more machines.
- Reduce the number of checks in the system. This could be done by processing checks more quickly or by reducing the number of checks that are received.
- Improve the efficiency of the system. This could be done by streamlining the process or by using better technology.