Ahmedabad Regional Passport Office

Rapid Response Time by Process Redesign

Service Operations Management Case Analysis Report
Group 8

Aashish Jethani - 2010004 Debashish Bagg - 2010298 Namita Choudhary - 2010127 Prabhuvardhan Reddy - 2010159 Sreechand Nambiar -2010230 Susnata Chakraborty -2010236 Tanuraj Kulshreshtha -2010240 Mudit - 2010123 Abstract: This case discusses the attempt to redesign the process of issuing passports at the Ahmedabad RPO which is suffering from a huge backlog. It gives a detailed description of the passport application and approval process and its sub-processes; the layout of the passport office; number of employees in each section, etc. It also gives the initiatives taken by Mr Swain, the Regional Passport Officer to change some of the procedures in order to improve the response time of the RPO. This report is an attempt by the group to help the re-design the RPO to minimize existing backlogs and reduce possibilities of any such backlogs piling up in near future.

Service Operations Management

Case Submission

Ahmedabad Regional Passport Office

Contents Introduction to problem at Ahmedabad Regional Passport Office: ................................................ 2 Bottleneck process: ......................................................................................................................... 2 Workforce Management: ................................................................................................................ 4 Benchmarking: ................................................................................................................................ 5 Process Redesign on basis of routing of application: ..................................................................... 5 Redesign of PPF Police verification process: ................................................................................. 6 Redesign of application process: .................................................................................................... 7 Reference: ....................................................................................................................................... 7

Introduction to problem at Ahmedabad Regional Passport Office: Service time promised by Ahmedabad Regional Passport Office for fresh passport application is five weeks. Table 1 of the case details random sample of passport processing and time taken by it at different stages. Mean delivery time according to that data is 145 days, i.e.21 weeks or 29 working weeks (5 working days a week). It has also been mentioned that an approximate of 1,00,000 applications have been pending might take 5000 3500 man weeks to complete which is a huge in terms of employment of casual workers for clearing. In monetary terms the employment of casual workers for above clearing will cost 120 (wages per worker per day) *5000 (weeks of operation) *5 (operating days a week), i.e. Rs 30,00,000. This still dont guarantee that backlogs will not pileup while they are being cleared.
Figure 1: Piling backlog at Ahmedabad RPO

30% % backlog 20% 10% 0% 1997 1998 1999 Years 2000 2001

From the statics that have been mentioned in Table 2(b), (displayed in Figure 1 above) backlogs at Ahmedabad Regional Passport Office have been rising at an alarming rate that adds to causes why service process at Ahmedabad RPO needs a redesign. Bottleneck process: It is given that approximately 188,906 applications have been processed in 2000 by Ahmedabad RPO. Assuming 230 working days, if would be 831 applications needs to be processed per day. Given that RPO works for 8 hours a day excluding half an hour for lunch (9:45am 6:15pm =8.5 hours 30 minutes (lunch) = 8 hours), we get 1.67 minutes of through put time per application. Lets measure throughput that is being provided at Ahmedabad RPO.

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Service Operations Management

Case Submission

Ahmedabad Regional Passport Office

Table 1 is a study of different process and the time taken for processing in that stage as pe the case. Going by this, if we neglect Preparation of Application as that is filled by the applicant and PVSR process that is done by the police we find that Writing is a process that might be forming the bottle neck. Through put of Ahmedabad RPO is 4 minutes, that will give 120 application processed per day (8 hours * 60 minutes / 4 minutes). This leaves a gap of 711 application per day which will give rise to 1,63,530 application backlog per year. If processing time of other application is also considered, that may reduce the number of backlogs to 1,00,000.
Table 1: Time taken by different process

Sl No. 1 2 Exit Do not effect o/p Re-entry

Process Preparation of Application Process at RPO Scrutinizing Dispatch of PPF Detailed Entry Indexing Daily section Linking at branches Granting Writing Pasting and Laminating PVSR Process

Timing Adj. Time Extra than prev. By Individual hence can be skipped 3 + 5 min 3 min 2 min 4 min 3 + 2 min 8 min 8 min

zero min

2 min 2 min 6 min 6 min 4 min 5 min 5 min By external body hence can be skipped

Table 2 is formed out of the data that is given table 5 and 7 of the case to assess the number of application that is being processed by each stage of this RPO. Figures in red are the extra man force that is not mentioned to any of the core department of the process and are redistributed among the process at hand. From this table it can be seen that there is a clear mismatch of demand and supply of service at Ahmedabad RPO. When the overall demand of Application to be processed is 891 applications per day only four processes makes it up to that number. It also happens that each of the process is not matched in terms of demand and supply to its previous and next process causing multiple bottleneck process. Even in this case writing process remains the core bottleneck.
Table 2: Applications that can be processed by each stage at Ahmedabad RPO

Sl No 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Group 8

Applications/ Activity Employee/ Day Employees Total applications Detailed Scrutiny -Acceptance Stage 160 Scrutiny and cash receipt 96 14 1344 detailed Scrutiny -Travel Agent 160 Detailed Scrutiny - Postal Agent 100 Scrutiny and cash receipt (max) 160 14 2240 Dispatch of PPF 160 3 480 Scanning of Registration Form 300 2 600 Detailed Entry 275 2 550 PVSR into computer 600 2 1200 Indexing 125 11 1375 Linking 240 3 720 Granting 300 2 600 Page 3

Service Operations Management 12 13 14 15 Signing Writing Pasting and lamination Dispatch entry

Case Submission 300 80 240 480

Ahmedabad Regional Passport Office 2 2 3 2 600 160 720 960

Workforce Management: Table3 is an extension of data in table 2 to find out the amount of employment gap that exist in the present employees and demand i.e. 188,906 applications of 2000 or expected demand of 235,000 for the year 2001. This gives the data gives us an estimate of 56 to 69 employees are needed to meet the present up surge in demand so that further backlogs can be prevented.
Table 3: Employees required and present at Ahmedabad Regional Passport Office

Sl No Activity 1 Detailed Scrutiny -Acceptance Stage 2 Scrutiny and cash receipt 3 detailed Scrutiny -Travel Agent 4 Detailed Scrutiny - Postal Agent Scrutiny and cash receipt 5 Dispatch of PPF 6 Scanning of Registration Form 7 Detailed Entry 8 PVSR into computer 9 Pasting and lamination 10 Signing 11 Writing 12 Dispatch entry 13 Indexing 14 Linking 15 Granting 16 Objections Others (Admin + Branches) Total employees * Assuming 230 working days

Applications/ Employee/ Day 160 96 160 100 160 300 275 600 240 300 80 480 125 240 300 200

Employees 188,906 Exiting applications 5 14 9 5 8 14 9 3 5 3 3 2 1 3 2 3 2 10 2 11 7 3 3 4 14 48 56

235,000 6 11 6 10 11 6 3 4 2 4 3 13 2 8 4 3 5 69

But this solution has a shortfall; demand of application processing has been increasing at an alarming rate of 10% to 12% per annum hence the employment demand also increases on the same line i.e. 10-12% annually except for 2001 where the expected increase is 23%. Now lets look at if the workforce of Ahmedabad RPO is justifiably distributed. This comparison is made on the basis of table 1 and table 5 given in the case. It can be seen that there is a huge mismatch in allocation of workforce and requirement of workforce per activity at Ahmedabad RPO.

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Service Operations Management

Case Submission

Ahmedabad Regional Passport Office

Table 4: Need vs. allocation of workforce per employee

Percentage of workforce

50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Receiving PVSR Granting % Allocated Writing Activity % Needed Dispatch

Benchmarking: From the data table 4 in the case we can form that there are different RPO that are performing much better than Ahmedabad RPO. For example we can see that RPOs at Delhi and Hyderabad are comparable in operations to Ahmedabad RPO but has much low backlog in terms of percentage, RPO of Bangalore has 2/3rd that operations of Ahmedabad but 1/10th of its backlog percentage. Benchmarking of operations at Ahmedabad RPO to that of such RPO which has such low backlog might improve the operations at Ahmedabad too.
Table 5: Backlog at different Regional Passport Office

Passport Office Ahmedabad Bangalore Kolkata Chennai Delhi Hyderabad Visakhapatnam

Application 189327 125838 112440 168087 189105 231809 50463

Backlog 42350 2296 16005 17944 21711 20816 5190

% backlog 22% 2% 14% 11% 11% 9% 10%

Process Redesign on basis of routing of application: Before we start of redesigning the existing service process at Ahmedabad RPO lets relook at the process such that if some of these can be eliminated or by-passed to deliver a better process. There are two types of passport applications that enter the RPO office, a set that are directly applied at RPO and another that arrives at RPO though travel agents.

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Service Operations Management

Case Submission

Ahmedabad Regional Passport Office

Figure 2: Application Process at Ahmedabad RPO

Now lets look at the different features of the service process and how they differ for these two kinds of applications. It has been given that applications forwarded through travel agents are less faulty and needs less/ no scrutiny. 1. Applications forwarded through travel agents: Process like Receiving Application and initial scrutiny can be eliminates hence killing 8 min of processing time. Detailed entry of the details with scanning of registration form can also be done at the Travel agents end hence killing 6 minutes more. 2. Applications directly applied to the Regional Passport Office. Redesign of PPF Police verification process: A basic redesign that can be done for the PPF police verification process is on the basis that majority of people applying to passport are non criminals hence dont need that thorough run of application which takes an average of 72 days (on basis of sample data in Table 1), and is approximately three times the delivery time that is promised. Verification can be done at the commissioners office against the data records of criminal hence verifying if the applicant is a non criminal. Verification of address proofs can be requested to be submitted with the
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Service Operations Management

Case Submission

Ahmedabad Regional Passport Office

application thus reducing the hackles of police department and the time taken in PPF verification. Redesign of application process: From the data given in the case it can be seen that approximately 57 days are taken for granting passports and the main cause of this time is improper filling of application forms, and non availability of appropriate documents and this is more prone to applications that are directly submitted to RPO than directed through travel agent. Bringing in this domain knowledge that the travel agents have developed or making the initial scrutiny more rigorous that the application form in not rejected on the basis of lack of information or documents will control this timings. Applying a combination of the above three redesign will help the RPO reduce service time by a significant amount and hence improve service levels at Ahmedabad RPO.

Reference: 1. Doorva Bahuguna and N. Ravichandran, Ahmedabad Regional Passport Office: Rapid Response Time by Process Redesign, Management Case, Vikalpa, Vol: 28, July-Sept: 2003.

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