“Optimizing Application Processing Efficiency for AI’s AI (AA)”

QUESTION

Using either blank paper or a tablet starting with a blank page, clearly write your responses indicating which question you are answering a), b), etc. Show work and round answers to two significant digits. This is a 25-minute quiz plus 10 minutes to upload a single .pdf to GradeScope using one of the approved apps. You must monitor your own time and stop at 25 minutes to give yourself plenty of time to complete the upload. Late submissions cannot be uploaded; contact your professor immediately if you can’t complete the upload – late submissions will be penalized. (20 points) A new artificial intelligence consulting company, AI’s AI (AA), is expanding so is looking to hire new employees. The HR department reviews applications for all available positions. There are three groups of applicants: junior consultants, senior consultants, and administrative staff. Each application must go through three steps in the process. The first step is downloading the applications and organizing them in the corresponding folders; there are three workers for this step, and each worker can process an application in 8 minutes. The second step is reviewing applications (resume and reference letters); there are five workers for this step, and each can process a junior consultant/administrative staff application in 18 minutes and each senior consultant application in 25 minutes. The third step involves writing a short report on each application and it has three workers who will spend 6 minutes on each application. The HR department receives 2 administrative staff applications, 4 junior consultant applications, and 6 senior consultant applications per hour. (4 points) Draw a process flow diagram, making sure to label the resources (workers) and the different times for the workers to process applications. (4 points) What is the capacity of the workers in the first step (Downloading) in applications per hour? c. (4 points) What is the capacity of the workers in the second step (Reviewing) in applications per hour? (4 points) What is the process capacity of AA? Explain. (2 points) What is the average processing time (i.e., touch time) for an application? (2 points) What is the Flow Rate? Show your work to earn full credit.

ANSWER

Process Flow Diagram:

I cannot draw diagrams as a text-based AI, but I can describe the process flow diagram for you.

Step 1: Downloading Applications

Resources: 3 workers

Time per application: 8 minutes

Step 2: Reviewing Applications

Resources: 5 workers

Time per junior consultant/administrative staff application: 18 minutes

Time per senior consultant application: 25 minutes

Step 3: Writing Short Reports

Resources: 3 workers

Time per application: 6 minutes

b) Capacity of Workers in Each Step:

b.1) Capacity of workers in the first step (Downloading):

3 workers can process applications in parallel.

Each worker takes 8 minutes per application.

So, the capacity is 3 workers * (60 minutes / 8 minutes per application) = 22.5 applications per hour (round to 2 significant digits, so it’s 23 applications per hour).

b.2) Capacity of workers in the second step (Reviewing):

5 workers can process applications in parallel.

Each worker takes 18 minutes for junior consultant/administrative staff applications and 25 minutes for senior consultant applications.

For junior consultant/administrative staff applications, capacity is 5 workers * (60 minutes / 18 minutes per application) = 16.67 applications per hour (round to 2 significant digits, so it’s 17 applications per hour).

For senior consultant applications, capacity is 5 workers * (60 minutes / 25 minutes per application) = 12 applications per hour.

c) Process Capacity of AA:

To calculate the process capacity of AI’s AI (AA), we need to consider the bottleneck step, which is the step with the lowest capacity.

In this case, the bottleneck step is the second step (Reviewing), where the capacity for junior consultant/administrative staff applications is 17 applications per hour, and for senior consultant applications, it’s 12 applications per hour.

So, the overall process capacity of AA is limited by the capacity of the second step, which is 12 applications per hour. This means that AA can process a maximum of 12 applications per hour.

d) Average Processing Time (Touch Time) for an Application:

The average processing time for an application is the sum of the times spent in each step divided by the total number of applications processed.

Average processing time = [(Number of junior consultant/administrative staff applications * Time for reviewing junior consultant/administrative staff applications) + (Number of senior consultant applications * Time for reviewing senior consultant applications) + (Total number of applications * Time for downloading) + (Total number of applications * Time for writing reports)] / Total number of applications

Average processing time = [(4 * 18 minutes) + (6 * 25 minutes) + (12 * 8 minutes) + (12 * 6 minutes)] / (4 + 6 + 12)

Average processing time = (72 + 150 + 96 + 72) / 22 Average processing time = 390 / 22 Average processing time ≈ 17.73 minutes per application (rounded to 2 significant digits, so it’s approximately 18 minutes per application).

e) Flow Rate:

The flow rate is the number of applications processed per hour. It is equal to the process capacity because the process capacity represents the maximum number of applications processed per hour.

Flow rate = Process capacity = 12 applications per hour.

In summary, AI’s AI (AA) can process a maximum of 12 applications per hour, and the average processing time for an application is approximately 18 minutes. This means that, on average, it takes 18 minutes for an application to go through the entire process, and AA can process up to 12 applications in an hour.