Quantitative

Process Analysis
Samuel Ady Sanjaya
 01

Flow Analysis
Flow Analysis
• estimate the overall performance of a process given some knowledge
about the performance of its tasks
Calculating Cycle Time
• the cycle time of a process is the average time it takes between the
moment the process starts and the moment it completes
Calculating Cycle Time: XOR
Block
• how frequently each branch of
the XOR-split is taken
• Example: B  90%, C 
10%, then 0.9×20 + 0.1 × 10 =

• Cycle time? 20? 30? 40? 19h

• Indeed, in a given instance of this • So, 19h + 10h (A) = 29h

process, either task B or task C is • p1, p2, etc. are the branching

performed probabilities
Calculating Cycle Time: AND
Block
• tasks B and C are executed in
parallel, their combined cycle
time is determined by the
slowest of the two tasks

• Cycle time? 20? 30? 40?

• Indeed, in a given instance of this
process, both task B or task C is
performed
Example: Credit Application Process

• 60% credit granted

• What is total cycle time?
 01

Cycle Time
Efficiency
Cycle Time Efficiency
• The cycle time of a task or of a process can be divided into waiting time
and processing time
• Waiting time is the portion of the cycle time where no work is being done
to advance the process
• Processing time, refers to the time that participants spend doing actual
work
• Cycle time efficiency  evaluating the ratio of overall processing time
relative to the overall cycle time.
Cycle Time Efficiency (1)
• Cycle time close to 1  low chance to improve, unless need radical
changes
• Cycle time close to 0  high chance to improve
• Cycle Time
• Theoretical Cycle Time (TCT)  Processing Time
Example: Credit Application Process

• 60% credit granted

• What is total cycle time?
• What is total TCT?
• What is the cycle time eficiency?
 01

Crytical Path
Crytical Path Method
• A low cycle time efficiency raises the question of which parts of the
process should be improved
• The Critical Path Method (CPM) is a well-known method for addressing
this question in the context of project planning
• This method can be applied to process models that do not contain decision
gateways
• CPM identifies the critical path based on the notions of early start (ES),
early finish (EF), late start (LS), andlate finish (LF) of each task of the
process
• Early  forward, late  backward
Crytical Path Method
Crytical Path Method
• In this example, we observe that the early start and finish times are the
same for most tasks
• Those tasks with a late start greater than the early start (LS > ES) or late
finish greater than early finish (LF > EF ) have slack
• This means that even when they start or complete later, it might still be
possible to finish the process without delay.
 01

Little’s Law
Little’s Law
• Cycle time is directly related to two measures that play an important role
when analyzing a process, namely arrival rate and Work-In-Process (WIP)
• The arrival rate of a process is the average number of new instances of the
process that are created per time unit, by λ (lambda) symbol
• Ex: credit application arrival time: perday, ecommerce: average perday
Little’s Law
Little’s Law
• If the number of customers per hour during peak times is expected to go
up, but the WIP has to remain constant, we need to reduce the cycle time
per customer.
• This may be achieved by shortening the serving time, the interval between
the moment a customer enters the restaurant and the moment he or she
places an order, or the time it takes for the customer to pay.
 01

Capacity and
Bottlenecks
Capacity and Bottlenecks
• The calculations of Little’s law rely on the assumption that the process
is stable
• In order to assess whether or not this assumption is applicable, we have
to know the theoretical capacity of the process and the resource
utilization of the resources involved in the process
• The theoretical capacity of a process is the maximum amount of
instances that can be completed per time unit given a set of resources
• The theoretical capacity is reached when a subset of the resources are
working at full capacity (no idle time)
Capacity and Bottlenecks: Call Center

• An insurance company receives 220 calls per day from customers who
want to lodge an insurance claim. All calls are handled by 7 call center
agents who work from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day
 Thanks!
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