tle read: ... INDIAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT BANGALORE Manzana Insurance:Fruitvale Branch Submitted to Prof. Devanath Tirupati Indian Institute of Management Bangalore By: Group Number 6 Vikash Oraon 0911283 Abhijit Pagare 1011076 Bharathi Priya 1011087 Bhargavi Konathala 1011089 Bhavika Kansara 1011090 Vishal Kumar 1011143 Manzana Insurance Introduction Manzana Insurance was started in 1902, and by 1953 had become the second-largest home and commercial property insurer in California. However, since the 1970's Manzana has been facing troubles from intense competition from the Golden Gate Casualty, as well as problems from an inefficient operating procedure leading to late issuance of policies, customer dissatisfaction, and defection of agents to other firms. Situational Analysis Recent complaints from agents about the turnaround time, percentage late figure and the poorly performing renewal business iterate the below average performance of the Fruitvale branch of Manzana. The following points were presented in the case. ? Around 76 independent agents represent Manzana at Fruitvale and dealt directly with the public. There was a difference in the commissions each agent received according to the policy request. ? Exhibit 1 gives an overview of the Operations flow across the four tasks that are performed for every policy request. O A RUN goes through all the four stages [Distribution, Underwriting, Rating and Writing] while a RAP and RERUN bypass the select and classify sub-stages of Underwriting. O After Rating, a RAP was returned back to the distribution clerk. Only 15% of all RAPs result in RUNs and transferred to policy writing. ? On the basis of average processing times, Fruitvale is equipped with enough staff to handle each major task Exhibit 2. Despite the overstaffed Rating and Policy writing teams, there is a noticeable increase in backlogs. ? The company policy is to use FIFO at each stage of the process, but however in practice there are preset priorities among the four stages. The most profitable RUNs and RAPs are run first followed by RAIN's and RERUN's. Exhibit 3 gives the annual premium revenues for three years. Problem Definition Manzana Insurance is facing operation inefficiencies resulting in excessively long turnaround times, overall customer dissatisfaction and loss in the existing customers due to significant delays. Objectives: Short term Objectives: The overall targets to be achieved in the short term are ? Reduce the percentage late figures in renewal business ? Utilize the available capacity in improving operational efficiency ? Increase the renewal rate by clearing the existing backlog of policies ? Redu