OM Practice - Balancing Risk and Efficiency at a Major Commercial Bank

Check processing institutions are being forced to downsize their workforce to cut cost and improve the efficiency of their operations as a result of continued growth of electronic payments, a consequence of the increasing popularity of debit/credit cards and use of online banking. For these institutions, these events are making more urgent the decision of how to staff a check-clearing house to trade off efficiency and the expected costs associated with the risks of delayed checks, which include fraud and float costs. In this paper, we discuss how a team of executives at a major commercial bank (CB) and Carnegie Mellon University students and faculty engaged in conducting a model-based study of the CB check-clearing operations. This project culminated in the development of a simulation optimization model to systematically analyze the nature of the highlighted risk efficiency trade-off at CB. The firm used the model recommendations to obtain operations downsizing guidelines for its senior managers during the implementation of a strategic workforce reduction program at their check-clearing house. The managerial insights from the team analysis, and the specific model-based recommendations, enabled CB executives to balance risk and efficiency while planning the reduction of their check-processing workforce.