Deciding Where to Place One Additional Checker
The branch has six clerks with 480 productive minutes each per day, after lunch and tea breaks, giving 2,880 clerk-minutes for the day. Last week's transaction counts (Monday to Friday) and the standard minutes per transaction, from the branch's own work-measurement study, are: Cash Deposit 320, 285, 410, 375, 290 at 3.5 minutes each; Cash Withdrawal 410, 380, 465, 440, 395 at 2.8 minutes; Clearing 96, 112, 88, 130, 74 at 6.0 minutes; Remittance 150, 165, 140, 175, 160 at 4.5 minutes; Account Opening and KYC 60, 72, 55, 80, 68 at 12.0 minutes. Errors logged in the same week were: Cash Deposit 14, Cash Withdrawal 9, Clearing 15, Remittance 3, Account Opening and KYC 6. The branch head must decide where to place the one additional checker sanctioned for next month, and whether the existing six clerks can clear the daily workload at all.
1. Compute the average transactions per working day for each counter and the clerk-minutes each counter consumes per day. Which counter consumes the most capacity?
Read the worked answer
Daily average = weekly total ÷ 5.
| Counter | Week total | Per day | Minutes each | Clerk-minutes/day |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cash Deposit | 1,680 | 336 | 3.5 | 1,176.0 |
| Cash Withdrawal | 2,090 | 418 | 2.8 | 1,170.4 |
| Clearing | 500 | 100 | 6.0 | 600.0 |
| Remittance | 790 | 158 | 4.5 | 711.0 |
| Account Opening/KYC | 335 | 67 | 12.0 | 804.0 |
| Total | 5,395 | 1,079 | - | 4,461.4 |
Answer: Cash Deposit consumes the most capacity at 1,176 clerk-minutes per day, but only by ₹5.6 minutes over Cash Withdrawal at 1,170.4 - they are effectively tied. Account Opening and KYC is third at 804 minutes from only 67 transactions a day, because each one takes 12 minutes.
The point to carry forward: volume and capacity consumption are not the same ranking. Cash Withdrawal has the highest transaction count (418/day) but is only level with Cash Deposit on time, while Account Opening handles 67 transactions yet eats nearly 17% of the day. Ranking counters by transaction count would give the wrong answer.
2. Compute the error rate per 100 transactions for each counter. Where should the single checker go, and what caveat would you put in writing?
Read the worked answer
Error rate per 100 = errors ÷ week total × 100.
| Counter | Errors | Week total | Errors per 100 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash Deposit | 14 | 1,680 | 0.83 |
| Cash Withdrawal | 9 | 2,090 | 0.43 |
| Clearing | 15 | 500 | 3.00 |
| Remittance | 3 | 790 | 0.38 |
| Account Opening/KYC | 6 | 335 | 1.79 |
Recommendation: place the checker at Clearing, at 3.00 errors per 100 - roughly 3.6 times the next highest rate and 7 times the remittance rate. Clearing errors (wrong instrument, wrong zone, missed return window) are also the costliest to fix after the fact.
Caveat to record in writing: Clearing produces only about 3 errors a day in absolute terms from 100 transactions, while Account Opening is at 1.79 per 100 and its 6 errors in a week are KYC and AML failures, which carry regulatory penalty, not just customer inconvenience. If the branch head weighs regulatory risk over rate, Account Opening is a defensible alternative, and the honest note should say so rather than presenting 3.00 as the only answer. A checker placed at Clearing also frees about 600 clerk-minutes of rework capacity.
3. Can the existing six clerks clear the daily workload? Quantify the gap and give the branch head realistic options.
Read the worked answer
Demand: 4,461.4 clerk-minutes per day (from the earlier table). Supply: 6 × 480 = 2,880 clerk-minutes per day.
Gap: 4,461.4 − 2,880 = 1,581.4 clerk-minutes short per day, roughly 26.4 clerk-hours.
- Utilisation required = 4,461.4 ÷ 2,880 = 155%.
- Clerks actually needed = 4,461.4 ÷ 480 = 9.3, so 10 clerks on current processes.
- With the 6 available, only 2,880 ÷ 4,461.4 = 64.6% of the workload can be handled.
Conclusion: no, the six cannot clear the day's work. The queue will spill into the next day every single day - the branch is not having a bad week, it is structurally under-capacitated. This, not the error rate, is the more urgent finding and should be reported first.
Options for the branch head:
- Six clerks putting in 264 minutes (4.4 hours) of overtime each per day - arithmetically possible, operationally unsustainable, and a fraud and error risk given the 3.00 Clearing error rate.
- Divert work off the counter. Account Opening is 12 minutes a transaction; moving even half of the 67 daily cases to assisted digital onboarding could release around 400 clerk-minutes a day.
- Reduce Cash Deposit and Cash Withdrawal counter load by pushing customers to the ATM, cash recycler and UPI, targeting the 2,346 combined minutes.
- Ask for sanctioned strength of 10, or 9 plus process savings, with the work-measurement figures above attached as evidence.
Place the checker at Clearing as recommended, but state clearly that the checker improves quality; it does not close a 1,581-minute daily capacity gap.