Showing papers on "Service system published in 2009"

The service system is the basic abstraction of service science

Abstract: ion is a powerful thing. During the nineteenth century, the Industrial Revolution was built on many powerful abstractions, such as mass, energy, work, and power. During the twentieth century, the information revolution was built on many powerful abstractions, such as binary digit or bit, binary coding, and algorithmic complexity. Here, we propose an abstraction for the twenty-first century, in which there is an emerging revolution in thinking about business and economics based on a service-dominant logic. The worldview of service-dominant logic stands in sharp contrast to the worldview of the goods-dominant logic of the past, as it holds service—the application of competences for benefit of others—rather than goods to be the fundamental basis of economic exchange. Within this new worldview, we suggest the basic abstraction is the service system, a configuration of people, technologies, and other resources that interact with other service systems to create mutual value. Many systems can be viewed as service systems, including families, cities, and companies, among many others. In this paper, we show how the service-system abstraction can be used to understand how value is co-created, in the process laying the foundation for an integrated science of service.

Foundations and Implications of a Proposed Unified Services Theory

Abstract: Diverse businesses, such as garbage collection, retail banking, and management consulting are often tied together under the heading of “services”, based on little more than a perception that they are intangible and do not manufacture anything. Such definitions inadequately identify managerial and operational implications common among, and unique to, services. We present a “Unified Services Theory” (UST) to clearly delineate service processes from non-service processes and to identify key commonalities across seemingly disparate service businesses. The UST defines a service production process as one that relies on customer inputs; customers act as suppliers for all service processes. Non-services (such as make-to-stock manufacturing) rely on customer selection of outputs, payment for outputs, and occasional feedback, but production is not dependent upon inputs from individual customers. The UST reveals principles that are common to the wide range of services and provides a unifying foundation for various theories and models of service operations, such as the traditional “characteristics of services” and Customer Contact Theory. The UST has significant operational corollaries pertaining to capacity and demand management, service quality, services strategy, and so forth. The UST provides a common reference point to which services management researchers can anchor future theory-building and theory-testing research.

Towards an operations strategy for product-centric servitization

Abstract: Purpose – This paper aims to present a framework that will help manufacturing firms to configure their internal production and support operations to enable effective and efficient delivery of products and their closely associated services. Design/methodology/approach – First, the key definitions and literature sources directly associated with servitization of manufacturing are established. Then, a theoretical framework that categorises the key characteristics of a manufacturer's operations strategy is developed and this is populated using both evidence from the extant literature and empirical data. Findings – The framework captures a set of operations principles, structures and processes that can guide a manufacturer in the delivery of product-centric servitized offering. These are illustrated and contrasted against operations that deliver purely product (production operations) and those which deliver purely services (services operations). Research limitations/implications – The work is based on a review of the literature supported by data collected from an exploratory case study. Whilst it provides an essential platform, further research will be needed to validate the framework. Originality/value – The principal contribution of this paper is a framework that captures the key characteristics of operations for product-centric servitized manufacture.

Service, services and products: rethinking operations strategy

Abstract: Purpose – This paper proposes a new approach to operations and supply strategy in the light of recent developments in the analysis of the respective roles of products and services in delivering benefits to customers.Design/methodology/approach – Reviews and synthesises concepts from operations management (OM), marketing, economics and related areas. Examples of product and service combinations are considered, drawing attention to the ways in which services may be distinguished from products. An institutional basis for defining services is favoured over IHIP. A corollary of this is how services are made tradable: the modularity theory of the firm is used to do this. The paper then outlines, considers and compares various approaches to the combination of products and services: “service‐dominant logic”, support services, product‐service systems, systems integration, performance‐based logistics, bundling and, finally, the notion of “the offering”.Findings – It is found that the notion of the business model is...

Amplification in service supply chains: an exploratory case study from the telecom industry

Abstract: Evidence on the impact of amplification, or bullwhip, effects on supply chain performance has primarily been derived from studies in manufacturing industries. This paper reports on a case study from the telecommunication industry, aiming to analyze relevant root causes and associated counter-measures of the amplification phenomenon in service supply chains. Case findings confirm the occurrence of upstream amplification of workload in the service supply chain, workload being a more appropriate measure for amplification effects in service supply chains than inventory levels. Not all of the root causes for amplification effects known from research in manufacturing environments were found to apply in this particular service context. Our telecom case study did highlight an additional root cause: interactions of high workloads and reduced process quality that start reinforcing each other in a vicious cycle once workloads pass a certain threshold. In this particular case, many of the known counter-measures to eliminate amplification did not apply given the nature of the service process or could only yield limited results. A potentially very powerful counter-measure is to implement quality improvements throughout the service chain. This quality dimension links our research to the literature on service management in general, where service quality is on top of the research agenda.

Method and system for provision and acquisition of medical services and products

Abstract: Transactional costs associated with providing professional services are reduced by allowing prospective patients/clients (bidders) and professional service providers to negotiate competitively for desired fees for proffered services through an interactive on-line communications network such as the Internet. In an exemplary arrangement, a transaction system includes a communications network server that interfaces and communicates online with client computer systems belonging to various prospective bidders and personal medical service providers using, for example, an exchange of HTML documents and/or JAVA script applets. A transaction system server handles online communications and procedures for conducting auctions for delivery of proffered services and maintains a registration database of service providers and bidders. An authentication/qualifier engine automatically researches and verifies service provider credentials and background information upon registration of a service provider with the system. Service provider qualification credentials and medical procedural code information databases as well as one or more search engines for verifying and/or researching the qualifications of a particular service provider are provided and made available to a bidder via, for example, a web-page menu driven interface. A service feedback interface and database are provided for handling online feedback information and comments from patients/clients and providers regarding the complexity and quality of services received or provided. The transaction system may also include remote client system software/hardware facilities for bidders and providers for providing customized database and computational services for communicating and participating in online bidding activities. An integrated life and health insurance product that integrates competitive bidding for health services with usage of death benefit equity for the purpose of life prolongation.

A Resource-Process Framework of New Service Development

Abstract: Motivated by the increasing attention given to the operational importance of developing new services, this paper offers a theoretical framework that integrates both process- and resourceoriented perspectives of new service development (NSD) by defining and organizing 45 practice constructs for NSD-related practices and activities that occur in contemporary service firms. We employ a rigorous procedure whereby both quantitative and qualitative data were gathered through multiple rounds of interviews and card-sorting exercises with senior service managers. This iterative refinement process helps ensure that the construct domains and definitions are consistent and that they are applicable across multiple service sectors. A primary contribution of this research is to provide precise operational definitions of theoretically important NSD practice constructs. Importantly, this study expands on the NSD literature by including both resource- and process-centric perspectives within a single framework. A second contribution is to illustrate a general methodology for developing clear, concise, and consistent construct definitions that may be generally useful for production and operations management scholars interested in new construct development for emerging areas. Empirical results suggest that the resource-process framework can help guide and organize future research on, and provide insight into, a more comprehensive view of new service development.

Introduction to product/service-system design

Abstract: The growing need for companies to address service design, as well as product design, in an integrated manner is becoming increasingly important across a number of industries. Product/Service System ...

Managing Quality in the E-Service System: Development and Application of a Process Model

Abstract: In this paper, we develop a process model for assessing and managing e-service quality based on the underlying components of the e-service system and, in turn, address the growing need to look in more detail at the system component level for sources of poor quality. The proposed process model is comprised of a set of entities representing the e-service system, a network defining the linking between all pairs of entities via transactions and product flows, and a set of outcomes of the processes in terms of quality dimensions. The process model is developed using Unified Modeling Language (UML), a pictorial language for specifying service designs that has achieved widespread acceptance among e-service designers. Examples of applications of the process model are presented to illustrate how the model can be use to identify operational levers for managing and improving e-service quality.

Framing research for service orientation of manufacturers through PSS approaches

Abstract: Purpose - In order to respond to the industrial trend towards service design and delivery, research must address a vast area partially related to value creation, marketing and network theories. How ...

Towards an Ontological Foundation for Services Science

Abstract: Most of the efforts conducted on services nowadays are focusing on aspects related to data and control flow, often disregarding the main goal of the future Internet of services , namely to allow the smooth interaction of people and computers with services in the actual world. Our main claim is that it is crucial, to achieve such goal, to build a global service framework able to account for complex processes involving people and computers, which however have always people at their ends. That's why in this paper we mostly emphasize the role of social and business-oriented services, whose consideration is needed to evaluate the global quality of e-services in relation to their ultimate social benefits, taking the overall impact on the organizational structure into account. Along these lines, the contribution of this proposal is a first concrete step towards a unified, rigorous and principled ontology centred on the notion of service availability, which results in useful distinctions betweenservice, service content, service delivery andservice process. Services are modelled by means of a layered set of interrelated events, with their own participants as well as temporal and spatial locations.

An empirical analysis of online game service satisfaction and loyalty

Abstract: In this study, we argue that there will have some factors affecting online game service satisfaction and loyalty. The purpose of this study is to understand an online game service model. This model contains several dimensions including experiential value, transaction cost, and service quality, the three antecedents of online game service satisfaction and loyalty and test the associations among the constructs in it. After surveying some players in Taiwan, we found that three antecedents have significant and positive effects on online game service satisfaction and which, in turn, significantly affect online loyalty. Especially, service quality has the relatively higher total positive effects on both online game satisfaction and loyalty. Meanwhile, online game satisfaction completely mediates the effects of these three antecedents on online loyalty. The findings imply that how to manage online game service quality better, provide more acceptable transaction cost, and offer more experiential value are the key ways for effectively enhancing players' satisfaction with the online game service in order to retain their loyalty to the online game service system. Because to keep competitiveness of online game industry is hard to hard, we hope this model can provide online game corporate to select and adopt the key point what the online game corporate should choose and how to affect the key factors of online game service satisfaction and online loyalty in online game industry.

Computational Thinking of Service Systems: Dynamics and Adaptiveness Modeling

Abstract: ervice is broadly considered as an application of specialized knowledge, skill, and experience, performed for co-creation of respective values of both consumer and provider. Services are engineered and delivered through a heterogeneous service system. Compared to physical goods in manufacturing, resources, largely people (end users as the service consumer and employees as the service provider) - the main focus of a service system, cannot be held and are more complex to model and manage as people participating in service production and consumption have physiological and psychological issues, cognitive capability, and sociological constraints, etc. As the world becomes more complex and uncertain socially and economically, this research proposes a computational thinking approach to modeling of the dynamics and adaptiveness of a service system, aimed at fully leveraging today’s ubiquitous digitalized information, computing capability and computational power so that the service system can be studied qualitatively and quantitatively. Ultimately, with this foundation we will successively and successfully develop the following mechanisms to implement and enhance service systems: • A mechanism to timely capture end users’ requirements, changes, expectation and satisfaction in a variety of technical, social, and cultural aspects; • A mechanism to efficiently and cost-effectively provide employees right means and assistances to engineer services while promptly responding the changes; • A mechanism to allow involved people consciously infuse as much intelligence as possible into all levels and aspects of decision-making to assure necessary system adaptiveness for smarter operations.

Service experience and service design: concepts and application in tourism SMEs

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the pertinent issues in the relationship between service experience and service design among small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) in the tourism industry.Design/methodology/approach – The conceptual paper undertakes a thorough review of the relevant literature before developing propositions regarding service experience and service design for SMEs in the tourism industry.Findings – Service experience must be appropriately managed by SME operators by collecting and evaluating relevant data on customer experience. Service design must be undertaken in a holistic manner that is embedded in the organisational culture of the service provider using tools such as “blueprinting”. Synergistic cooperation and learning regions among traditionally fragmented tourism providers are essential for achieving long‐term competitiveness.Research limitations/implications – Future research should undertake empirical studies to validate and/or modify the propositions presente...

System of integrated telematics service and method of controlling the system

Abstract: Provided is an integrated telematics service system that may operate as an essential network interoperating gateway in a smart vehicle appropriate for a ubiquitous environment, and that includes: a network interface unit that receives a user input to process the user input based on an ontology modeling for the integrated telematics service, and interoperates with an external network of the smart vehicle; a knowledge based management unit that interoperates with the network interface unit to manage a policy and a schedule for a telematics service, an event occurring in the smart vehicle, and a schedule of a user; and a service unit that converts information associated with a navigation service or a multimedia service to a form suitable for an internal device of the smart vehicle, to perform a one-source-multi-use function.

Volume Flexible Strategies in Health Services: A Research Framework

Abstract: The prevalence of fluctuating demand is increasingly seen as a serious and ongoing issue facing the health services industry. Volume flexibility in a health care setting represents a means to improve service delivery and it allows organizations to leverage their scarce resources for optimal utilization in response to fluctuations in patient demand. This paper develops a research framework that describes four volume flexible strategies based on literature reviews and structured field interviews of health care administrators at a Carnegie I research and teaching hospital. This prescriptive framework and the propositions that are developed create a foundation to help guide future research on the important relationships between demand uncertainty, volume flexible strategies, and organizational performance.

A Multiple-Item Scale for Assessing E-Government Service Quality

Abstract: A critical element in the evolution of e-governmental services is the development of sites that better serve the citizens' needs. To deliver superior service quality, we must first understand how citizens perceive and evaluate online citizen service. This involves defining what e-government service quality is, identifying its underlying dimensions, and determining how it can be conceptualized and measured. In this article we conceptualise an e-government service quality model (e-GovQual) and then we develop, refine, validate, confirm and test a multiple-item scale for measuring e-government service quality for public administration sites where citizens seek either information or services.

High quality and low cost: the lean service centre

Abstract: Purpose – There are two objectives of this paper: first, to examine the application of lean production improvement techniques to the pure‐service context; and, second, to evaluate the contribution of lean production techniques to services marketing improvement.Design/methodology/approach – Three case companies from the UK financial services sector are tracked through the process of lean improvement. Analysis of management change of a common process within each company forms the basis of the investigation.Findings – Research findings highlight that, through the adoption of lean service tools, service call centres can serve the traditionally competing priorities both of operational cost reduction and of increased customer service quality. The lean approach is validated in the service context and proposed as a valuable addition to traditional service marketing approaches to services improvement.Practical implications – The techniques described are easily replicable by academics, practitioners and managers an...

University course selection and services marketing

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine university applicants' choice processes using Kotler's five stage consumer buying process with a particular emphasis on the final stage of the process namely that of the purchase decision.Design/methodology/approach – Based on four focus groups with 22 students at one university in North‐west England, post‐enrolment.Findings – Applicants' choice processes are complex and not evenly supported by university departments. Using concepts from the field of services marketing, the student choice process as candidates progress through the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service system is critically interrogated. “Moments of truth” are seen to be critical in many students' decision to choose a specific university course. University personnel need to be mindful that the decision process is two way and takes place over an extended period of time.Research limitations/implications – This research has been conducted with respondents drawn from just one university a...

An Empirical Examination of the Structural Dimensions of the Service Recovery System

Abstract: This study identifies the structural dimensions that constitute a service recovery system. We employ a structured scale development process to introduce, define, and operationalize seven distinct first-order constructs (i.e., structural dimensions) of service recovery. Potential constructs and their items are identified from the literature, experts and practitioners are employed to refine scales, and psychometric properties are tested using data from a sample of 158 service providers. Constructs such as those developed here should prove to be useful as researchers strive to incorporate operational notions into service recovery studies and to move toward systematic recovery prescriptions for service providers. Accordingly, the results presented herein can provide a springboard for future research on service recovery while also providing practicing managers with a diagnostic tool against which to benchmark existing recovery systems.

Value-Based Service Modeling and Design: Toward a Unified View of Services

Abstract: Service-oriented architectures are the upcoming business standard for realizing enterprise information systems, thus creating a need for analysis and design methods that are truly service-oriented. Most research on this topic so far takes a software engineering perspective. For a proper alignment between business and IT, a service perspective at the business level is needed as well. In this paper, a unified view of services is introduced by means of a service ontology, service classification and service layer architecture. On the basis of these service models, a service design method is proposed and applied to a case from the literature. The design method capitalizes on existing value modeling approaches.

Unifying Service Marketing and Operations With Service Experience Management

Abstract: One of the pioneer firms in the leisure cruise industry embarked on a bold idea in 2000 to offer an unregimented experience unlike most cruises. Despite the appeal of the concept from a marketing perspective, the service innovation posed operational challenges, many of which continue to undermine the firm's competitive position. Using a multimethod empirical approach and interdisciplinary views that draw on research from marketing and operations management, the authors analyze this business case to identify challenges that service firms face when services are developed and managed from siloed functional perspectives. Based on their research findings and guided by the literature, the authors derive a service-systems model to aid service planning and management. The authors further highlight a new organizational form and function for services under the domain of service experience management that is positioned as a means to unify service operations and marketing for delivering on service promises. The autho...

Appointment policies in service operations: a critical analysis of the economic framework

Abstract: In this paper we review the literature on appointment policies, specifically in terms of the objective function commonly used and the assumptions made about the behavior of demand. First, we provide an economic framework to analyze the problem. Based on this framework we make a critical analysis of the objective functions used in the literature. We also question the validity of the assumption made throughout the literature that demand is exogenous and independent of customers' waiting times. We conclude that the objective functions used in the literature are appropriate only in the case of a central planner facing a demand that is unresponsive to waiting time. For other scenarios, such as a private server facing a demand that does react to waiting time, these objective functions are only shortcuts for the real objective functions that must be used. A more general model is then proposed that fits these scenarios well. Finally, we determine the impact of using the literature's objective functions on optimal appointment policies.

Information technology source migration

Abstract: A method of managing IT sources among a first computer system and at least one computer service system comprises obtaining a resource utilization trend of the first computer system based on a history of utilization of an IT resource in the first computer system; obtaining a data sending throughput rate from the first computer system to each of the at least one computer service system; and, based on the resource utilization trend and the data sending throughput rate, selecting a target computer service system to migrate a workload from the first computer system, determining a start time to start a precede data copy associated with the workload to be migrated, prior to switching over processing of the workload at a switching time, and starting the precede data copy from the first computer system to the target computer service system at the start time.

A Note on the Growth of Research in Service Operations Management

Abstract: We present an empirical assessment of the productivity of individuals and institutions in terms of service operations management (SOM) research. We reviewed five mainstream operations management journals over a 17-year time period to generate a sample of 463 articles related to service operations. The results indicate that SOM research has been growing and key contributions are being made by an array of researchers and institutions.

Optimizing Service Systems Based on Application-Level QoS

Abstract: Making software systems service-oriented is becoming the practice, and an increasingly large number of service systems play important roles in today's business and industry. Currently, not enough attention has been paid to the issue of optimization of service systems. In this paper, we argue that the key elements to be considered in optimizing service systems are robustness, system orientation, and being dynamic and transparent. We present our solution to optimizing service systems based on application-level QoS management. Our solution incorporates three capabilities, i.e., 1) the ability to cater to the varying rigidities on Web service QoS in distinct application domains and of various users in a robust and heuristic manner, 2) the ability to formulate the overall system utility of a service system perceived by a particular system end user and to suggest its maximization using a utility model incorporated into a three-dimensional weighting scheme, and 3) the ability to dynamically achieve a higher perceived system utility of a service system via transparent negotiations. The calculation of the system utility encompasses a negotiation algorithm and a robust search algorithm for selecting heuristically best Web services. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithms and our solution is demonstrated by simulation experiments and our demo deployment, SSO.

A longitudinal study of the effect of a service guarantee on service quality

Abstract: This paper develops a theoretical framework that relates a service guarantee to service quality. The framework hypothesizes that a service guarantee can positively affect service quality through its positive effect on both learning through service failure and employee motivation and vision. A longitudinal, empirical study was conducted to test these hypotheses. Surprisingly, the service guarantee was not found to have a direct effect on learning through service failure. However, the service guarantee clearly had a positive effect on service quality primarily through its positive effect on employee motivation and vision. The research strongly supports using a service guarantee to improve service quality.