Question $2-$A

One Hour Loan $(10$ points$)$

One Hour Loan offers customized loans. Customers call a toll$-$free number with a specific loan request and obtain a response within an hour. One Hour loan's business process includes five activities that must be conducted in the sequence described below. $($The time required for each activity is shown in parentheses.$)$

Activity $1$: Answer customer call and record key information $(4$ minutes$/$loan$).$

Activity $2$: Gather and format the information $($obtain credit scores, organize customer$-$specific needs$)$ for analysis $(5$ minutes$/$loan$).$

Activity $3$: Analyze the information: check the creditworthiness and decide the loan amount and APR to offer $(7$ minutes$/$loan$).$

Activity $4$: Perform final checks on the loan offer $(2$ minutes$/$loan$).$

Activity $5$: Call customer back with the new loan offer and close $(4$ minutes$/$loan$).$

The whole process is conducted by three workers in a worker$-$paced line. The assignment of tasks to workers is the following: Worker $1$ does activity $1,$ Worker $2$ does activities $2$ and $3,$ and Worker $3$ does activities $4$ and $5.$ Each worker is paid $$20$ per hour. You can assume that there exists unlimited demand and that loans are only entering the process at the rate of the bottleneck.

$($a$)(2pt)$ What is the bottleneck in the process?

$($b$)(2pt)$ What are the costs of direct labor?

$($c$)(3$ pt$)$ Across all three workers, what is the average labor utilization?

$($d$)(3$ pts$)$ How would you rebalance the process to maximize process capacity, assuming that the five activities have to be carried out in the given order?