The DMV : A Case Study in Modernization
BAN – 5003 – 1D1 – SP – 2020
Pradeep Kannan Mayil
1/24/2021
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Important facts about modernizing the DMV:
DMV is one of the busiest customer service company in California, with hundreds of
thousands of footfalls every year and they process millions of online transactions. With the
recent expansion of online payments with specialized appointment systems, wait times have
been substantially reduced, this enabled them to increase their productivity.
It has about 33 million registered vehicles and 25 million drivers have been provided
license to drive. A recent survey about the people who would prefer using online services has
shown that approximately 40% of Americans, especially in the age range of 18-44 are in favor of
moving the processes online to avoid wait times.
Two thirds of the survey group also preferred to renew license, to register, and to apply
for permits online.
Smartphones are the primary online portal for one in five Americans, especially for those
with low incomes and low educational attainment levels. There are several people without online
access in constant, so for those the California DMV has installed self-service terminals at 50
field offices, where the customer can skip the queue to obtain their registrations and vehicle
tags in an instant.
In the year 2013, DMV has progressed rapidly and handled more than 500,000 new
customers under the Assembly bill 60 act, where an applicant who is unable to submit
satisfactory proof of legal presence can apply for a DL but they must provide satisfactory proof
of identity and California residency.
Despite these new implementations, there are several setbacks associated with this
project and the Department must focus on serving customers of all needs without compromising
their quality of service.
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Key Issues associated with Modernizing the DMV:

DMV has typical service environment with customers who would prefer less wait times,
the employees who should be flexible enough to perform all duties to attain the
organizational needs.

An important challenge is staff allocation in each DMV based on the necessity and
availability of the staff to various needs such as administering, photographing, and
issuing license.

Labor productivity has to be improved as well with the allocated budget and it can not be
increased according to the customer demands.

Previously transactions such as new vehicle registration, license renewals, and other
transactions are made in person. Moreover, if there were any transactions that is
delayed or denied, then the customer has to be in person to figure that out.

So if the DMV were to phase out their operation completely online, the availability of the
internet channels has the potential to increase the traffic in person rather than reducing it
because of the varying degrees of access to different consumers.

Information about the levels of management poses another threat to this project. DMV
has two levels of management, local office and the state executive. Both process similar
information but in different levels. Local office needs information on customer wait times,
productivity, the number of plates issued, and so on, whereas they state executive does
not need this information for a specific location at a specific time. The executive needs
an overall picture of a particular location with the information to allocate resources to
avoid longer wait times.

To meet these challenges, the managers at each DMV offices must make real time
adjustments with the curated data rather than the current system of intuitive decision
making.
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
Inventory management is another tedious process that involves maintaining quantities of
blank driver’s license, vehicle registration forms, and registration sticker for license
plates. It is quite important that an office always carries these at enough quantity and not
to run out of. It comes with a drawback of fraudulent and theft of these plates. So it is
indeed necessary to maintain the accurate inventory of such items.

Staff scheduling is one of the primary constraints in Modernization. The headquarters
need to determine how many employees are allocated to each office and their
responsibilities are monitored too, which from the manager’s perspective, is a resource
constraint.
Addressing the issues:

The above-mentioned key issues can be offset by utilizing tools such as Data
Warehousing/ Business Intelligence models. Decisions made based on the analytical
applications can be quantifiably better than the current decisions. Operations Analytics
can be helpful, in a way that common, integrated data obtained from Data
warehousing/Business intelligence, to make better decisions than intuitive methods. It
also helps manage time and allocate resources to perform other duties than the primary
need thus increases productivity.

DW/BI can help in providing metrics such as costs, accuracy, service, and productivity to
meet the needs of local office managers.

Macro level staff modelling can be done using such tools so as to forecast the demands
for several services provided by DMV using metrics and previous year data.

This could also help identify the bottlenecks on where the productivity is lost, employee
population in a particular office and their associated activities in a day-to-day basis.
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
Analytical applications using this data and several other must have the ability to assess
the need of additional DMV offices, as well as commissioning those offices in
appropriate locations.

More resources should be allocated to maintain the network and servers that operates
the DMV site and application, to offer fluidity in service without any errors or issues. This
will encourage more applicants to use online portals and thus reducing in-person traffic.

Alternate methods to deliver service must be taken into consideration as well including
self-service kiosks only, drive-through services where you can access the kiosks and
receive service without the necessity of walking in person into the office.

Mobile DMV will be a great option too, with services provided on the go for people with
limited online access to the application.

Examining the policy alternatives like the days of operation and time, so as to allocate
resources accordingly.

Staff scheduling can be done through modelling, which help the managers to allocate
the staff according to varying demands.

These data are quantitative and can be provided by the application repository and
historical data. These can be refined to the specific requirements of the local office
managers and can be simulated for future references.

Several tools are available nowadays to automate the scheduling process with limited
interventions and high accuracy, which will help the managers to focus on other issues in
providing services rather than on scheduling staff.

Analytics can be used in maintaining inventory of several items like plates and forms, it
also helps us to track these items so as to prevent from copying or theft.
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Evaluation of Courses of Action:
Implementing BI tools to automate the process of staff scheduling sounds like a high
concept but when looked deeply it is not as intimidating as it sounds. Staff scheduling using
powerful tools are already in place and are used by several firms. Local DMV with high
volume of transactions can adapt these tools to allocate their resources. Prediction models
can be developed based on the in-person traffic from previous year reports and the number
of transactions processed on a particular day.
This will allow the managers to forecast the volume expected on a particular workday
and resources can be designated to perform several duties rather than one at a time. Once
this is successfully implemented in an office that handles high volumes can be translated to
other offices easily.
Self-servicing kiosks for secondary operations that doesn’t require an employee’s
attention at a DMV should be set up and expanded to multiple locations, there by reducing
the manpower and by streamlining their duties to top priorities.
Mobile DMV offices and Drive through systems, where you don’t necessarily have to
step into the office and could work like the self-servicing kiosks. Renewals and other less
priority processes could be done way easier and quicker for people who don’t really have
the access or option to online portal services. Staff can be allocated more effectively, by
servicing more customers through this method.
BI tools also come into picture for maintaining the staff schedule and plan from the
administrative level. Hiring plans, vacations, plans for developing or redeploying existing
staff can be predicted using these tools.
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An analytical application can be developed in such a way that it helps monitoring the
inventory of valuable items used in the DMV. This will trickle down to the local offices, so
whenever the local office needs replenishment, the system could be used to fulfill the needs.
Several types of tools can be implemented in the same organization to perform different
sets of functions. Industry focused or Role focused applications are used to govern the
objectives of the organization.
Viable solution:
DMV should consider and invest in DW/BI solutions, which inturn will bring high ROI in
terms of providing efficient and fast service, and reduced foot fall in the office. This will
enable the DMV to effectively utilize their resources and increase productivity without
deviating further from their annual budgets.
Self-serving kiosks or Drive throughs could be the future for every service industry that
plans on reducing longer wait time in the service location and also to reduce man power to
cut operational costs.
References
Collins, B., Keith, R.,(2005). Getting Started with Operations Analytics.
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