GV is a small accounting firm supporting wealthy individuals in their preparation of annual income tax statements. Every December, GV sends out a short survey to their customers, asking for the information required for preparing the tax statements. Based on 50 years of experience, GV categorizes their cases into the following two groups:
• Group 1 (new customers): 20% of cases
• Group 2 (repeat customers): 80% of cases
This year, there are 50 income tax statements arriving each week. In order to prepare the income tax statement, GV has three resources. The activities are carried out by the following three persons:
• An administrative support person that processes every tax statement.
• Senior accountant (who is also the owner): who processes only tax statements for new customers
• Junior accountant: who only processes tax statements for repeat customers.
Processing times for both groups and all resources are shown in the table below. Assume that everyone works 40 hours per week.
Group Administrator [min/unit] Handling by senior accountant
[min/unit] Handling by junior accountant
[min/unit]
1 20 40 n/a
2 20 n/a 15
a. Which of the three persons is the bottleneck?
Administrator
Senior accountant
Junior accountant
b. For a mix of 20:80 between new and old cases, what is the flow rate for new customers? new cases per week
c. For a mix of 20:80 between new and old cases, what is the flow rate for repeat customers? new customers per week
d. For a mix of 20:80 between new and old cases, what is the capacity for new customers? cases per week
e. For a mix of 20:80 between new and old cases, what is the capacity for repeat customers? cases per week