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Dufalla, Michele. "Essays in Service Operations Management." Research Showcase @ CMU, 2014. http://repository.cmu.edu/dissertations/346.
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In this dissertation, I discuss three problems within service operations management: identifying situational attributes that lead to positive customer outcomes under a Twitter-based customer service framework; the conditions for finite delay of first-in-first-out multiserver systems when confronted with integral loads; and the relative performance of different bargaining mechanisms for a seller of finite perishable inventory, with a further investigation of the consequences of modeling private information. First, we consider a large telecommunications company that provides customer support over Twitter. Using 10 months of service data, we apply model selection techniques to develop an ordinal logistic regression model assessing the probability that a given customer service interaction will result in a positive, neutral or negative resolution as determined by the customer’s sentiment expression. Our model incorporates customer, service and network explanatory attributes. We find that customers are less likely to experience a positive final sentiment as time passes, that is, those cases later in the 10 month period studied are less likely to experience positive resolution. This suggests that there is a drop-off in the likelihood of more positive resolution, but that this effect levels off. This finding may indicate a shift by the customer service team to harder to resolve cases as the program matures. Next, we consider conditions for finite expected delay in FIFO multiserver queues with integral loads. Scheller-Wolf and Vesilo (2006) find necessary and sufficient conditions for a finite rth moment of expected delay in a FIFO multiserver queue, assuming a non-integral load and a service time distribution belonging to class L1B . Removing the non-integral load assumption results in a gap between the identified necessary and sufficient conditions, as discussed by Foss (2009). We decrease the size of this gap through the application of domain of attraction results. Specifically, we find a stricter necessary condition for a GI/GI/K-server system with integral p that is more restrictive than those in the literature. Finally, we consider the problem of a seller with a finite supply of perishable inventory. We consider four price setting mechanisms: seller posted price, buyer posted price, split-the-difference, and the neutral bargaining solution. We rank the value of these different mechanisms analytically and numerically in the context of the symmetric uniform trading problem from the perspective of the seller. While the ordering of the mechanisms remains the same as compared to the infinite horizon case studied in the literature, we use a model analogous to the infinite horizon case to find numerically that the relative value of the split-the-difference mechanism increases when the seller ultimately faces a dead- line to complete the sales. The split-the-difference mechanism becomes more valuable as the ratio of available inventory to time remaining increases because it is more likely to result in a sale than the seller posted price mechanism. In general, modeling private information is more challenging for the split-the-difference and neutral bargaining solution mechanisms than for the two posted price mechanisms. To assess the importance of this added complication, we quantify the effect of modeling private information when computing the seller’s opportunity cost and find that while private information makes only a small difference in the neutral bargaining solution case, this modeling choice makes a large difference in the split-the-difference case when the seller is weak.
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SHAVER, KAY A. "Activity-based Evaluation of Operations Management within Service Operations Organization." NCSU, 1998. http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/theses/available/etd-19980408-101235.
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SHAVER, KAY ALBRIGHT. Activity-based Evaluation of Operations Management within Service Operations Organization. (Under the direction of John Dutton.) The purpose of this study is to use historical cross-sectional data including order characteristics to predict the time requirements of the indirect activity of managing. The subject of the study is the Operations Manager, who manages the supervision of engineering and installation of orders. Predictions of time estimates for the Operations Manager will provide information for staffing and workforce planning of the indirect activities required to manage the forecasted order workload. The research includes a pilot survey of Operations Managers in three regions and a final empirical study, which includes the entire Service Organization?s Operations Manager population. Using regression analysis, the study evaluates the factors noted in the pilot survey as important to the Operations Managers. Consideration is given to order characteristics, such as size, customer relationships, schedule changes, interval, Operations Manager assigned. Consideration is also given to general characteristics, such as seasonal effects, concurrent orders, experienced installers available, and inventory levels. The analysis reveals that category of work, size of the order as measured by number of frames, seasonal impacts, the Operations Manager assigned, customer relationships, and the effort required to underspend the budget are key predictors of the time required to manage the supervision of the engineering and installation of orders. The results indicate interval, inventory, schedule changes and experienced installers available are not significant indicators of this indirect order activity.
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Arfmann, David. "A new lean service model : the value of customer integration into service operations." Thesis, University of Gloucestershire, 2015. http://eprints.glos.ac.uk/2927/.
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Purpose – The purpose of this thesis is to explore the implications of value co-creation on lean service operations. Given that only customers are able to create value, the integration of customers becomes more and more important. This thesis investigates customer integration through applying and enhancing lean principles. The overall goal of this study is to develop and test a model to integrate customers into service operations in a lean way, considering value co-creation theory. Design/methodology/approach – The overall research strategy of enquiry consists of action research and mixed methods approaches. A systematic literature review is conducted on customer integration methods considering 27 relevant studies. Afterwards, a meta-synthesis of these studies is provided to develop a model for lean customer integration. Seven propositions are formulated to test the model. Therefore, the model is implemented in two independent pole case companies (SMEs) within pure service businesses. Six different mixed methods are applied to investigate effects of model implementation. Beside interviews, process observations and customer workshops, document analysis, Monte Carlo Simulation, regular debriefing sessions are conducted. To clarify arising anomalies, an experiment is conducted with 46 participants in 4 different groups. Finally, a revised model is presented. Findings – The findings show that through synthesizing selected studies, a model is developed that should facilitate customer integration into firm’s service operations in a lean way. Application of the model in the case companies reveals that it enables a company to enhance operational performance, as well as value creation. Findings further show that a significant portion of unavoidable waste can be turned into either functional or emotional value. This emphasizes the relevance of developing and applying service specific lean tools in order to cope with service specific challenges. Research limitations and practical implications – As the findings are based on a systematic literature review and tested within a pure service environment (SMEs), the proposed model should be tested in other circumstances to further improve the results. The findings may be of interest to scholars in the field of lean or service operations, as well as practitioners seeking to enhance their operational performance through lean customer integration. Originality/value – This thesis contributes to knowledge in the field of lean service operations, as it provides the first validated model to integrate customers in operations in a lean way. It also provides a new approach to practitioners seeking not only to ‘streamline’, but also to ‘valueline’ their value creation processes. In particular, the role of customers as value (co-) creators is considered from an operational perspective and provides important insights on how customer value can be enhanced in pure services.
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Ren, H. "The role of consumer behaviour in service operations management." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2018. http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/10047003/.
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In this thesis, I study the impact of consumer behaviour on service providers’ operations. In the first study, I consider service systems where customers do not know the distribution of uncertain service quality and cannot estimate it fully rationally. Instead, they form their beliefs by taking the average of several anecdotes, the size of which measures their level of bounded rationality. I characterise the customers’ joining behaviour and the service provider’s pricing, quality control, and information disclosure decisions. Bounded rationality induces customers to form different estimates of the service quality and leads the service provider to use pricing as a market segmentation tool, which is radically different from the full rationality setting. When the service provider also has control over quality, I find that it may reduce both quality and price as customers gather more anecdotes. In addition, a high-quality service provider may not disclose quality information if the sample size is small. In the second study, I analyse the performance of opaque selling in countering the negative revenue impact from consumers’ strategic waiting behaviour in vertically differentiated markets. The advantage of opaque selling is to increase the firm’s regular price, whereas the disadvantage lies in the inflexibility of segmenting different types of consumers. Both the advantage and the disadvantage are radically different from their counterparts in horizontally differentiated markets, and this contrast generates opposite policy recommendations across the two settings. In the third study, I investigate an online store’s product return policy when competing with a physical store, in which consumers can try the product before purchase. I find that the online store should offer product return only if it is socially efficient. Moreover, it should allocate product return cost between the online store and the consumers to minimise the total return cost.
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Al-Kaabi, Mohamed. "Improving project management planning and control in service operations environment." Thesis, De Montfort University, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/2086/5486.
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Projects have evidently become the core activity in most companies and organisations where they are investing significant amount of resources in different types of projects as building new services, process improvement, etc. This research has focused on service sector in attempt to improve project management planning and control activities. The research is concerned with improving the planning and control of software development projects. Existing software development models are analysed and their best practices identified and these have been used to build the proposed model in this research. The research extended the existing planning and control approaches by considering uncertainty in customer requirements, resource flexibility and risks level variability. In considering these issues, the research has adopted lean principles for planning and control software development projects. A novel approach introduced within this research through the integration of simulation modelling techniques with Taguchi analysis to investigate ‗what if‘ project scenarios. Such scenarios reflect the different combinations of the factors affecting project completion time and deliverables. In addition, the research has adopted the concept of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) to develop an automated Operations Project Management Deployment (OPMD) model. The model acts as an iterative manner uses ‗what if‘ scenario performance outputs to identify constraints that may affect the completion of a certain task or phase. Any changes made during the project phases will then automatically update the performance metrics for each software development phases. In addition, optimisation routines have been developed that can be used to provide management response and to react to the different levels of uncertainty. Therefore, this research has looked at providing a comprehensive and visual overview of important project tasks i.e. progress, scheduled work, different resources, deliverables and completion that will make it easier for project members to communicate with each other to reach consensus on goals, status and required changes. Risk is important aspect that has been included in the model as well to avoid failure. The research emphasised on customer involvement, top management involvement as well as team members to be among the operational factors that escalate variability levels 3 and effect project completion time and deliverables. Therefore, commitment from everyone can improve chances of success. Although the role of different project management techniques to implement projects successfully has been widely established in areas such as the planning and control of time, cost and quality; still, the distinction between the project and project management is less than precise and a little was done in investigating different levels of uncertainty and risk levels that may occur during different project phase.
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Jones, Peter. "Hospitality operations management : a systems approach to the service concept and capacity management." Thesis, University of Surrey, 1998. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.388992.
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Jouini, Oualid. "Stochastic modeling in call centers operations management." Châtenay-Malabry, Ecole centrale de Paris, 2006. http://www.theses.fr/2006ECAP1022.
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Le sujet de cette thèse porte sur le développement et l'analyse de modèles stochastiques pour l'aide à la décision dans les centres d'appels. Dans la première partrie, nous considérons un centre d'appels où tous les agents sont groupés ensemble. Nous étudions les bénéfices de la migration depuis cette configuration à celle où les agents sont organisés en pool. Chaque pool est responsable d'un portefeuille de clients. Ensuite, nous considérons un centre d'appel avec des clients impatients. Nous développons des politiques dynamiques pour l'affectation des clients aux différentes files d'attente. L'objectif est lié aux qualités de service différenciées exprimées en terme du pourcentage de clients perdus. Enfin, nous étudions un centre d'appel qui annonce les délais d'attente aux clients. Nous montrons les avantages de l'annonce des délais sur les performances du système. Dans la deuxième partie, nous considérons un processus de naissance et de mort de forme générale. Nous calculons les moments de plusieurs variables aléatoires liées aux temps de premier passage d'un état à un autre. Ensuite, nous montrons un résultat de concavité dans une d'attente avec des clients impatients. Nous montrons que la probabilité d'entrer en service est strictement croissante et concave en fonction de la taille de la file d'attenteIn this thesis, we focus on various operations management issues of call centers. We derive both qualitative and quantitative results for practical management. In the first part of the thesis, we investigate the impact of team-based organizations in call centers management. We develop queueing models that show the benefits of the team-based organization in providing better performances. Next, we consider a multicall call center with impatient customers. We develop dynamic scheduling policies that assign customers to the waiting lines. We focus on differentiated service levels criteria related to the fraction of abandoning customers. Finally, we propose a call center model in which we provide information about queueing delays to customers, and we quantify its effect upon performance. In the second part of the thesis, we tackled the quantitative analysis of stochastic processes ans queueing models. First, we derive several closed-form expressions of the moments of first passage times in general birth-death processes. Second, we investigate some monotonicity properties for the probability of being served in markovian queueing systems with impatient customers
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He, Qiao-Chu. "Essays on Service Operations Systems| Incentives, Information Asymmetries and Bounded Rationalities." Thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 2018. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10189461.
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This dissertation is concerned with service operations systems with considerations of incentives, information asymmetries and bounded rationalities. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the dissertation.
In Chapter 2, motivated by the information service operations for the agricultural sectors in the developing economies, we propose a Cournot quantity competition model with price uncertainty, wherein the marketing boards of farmers' cooperatives have the options to obtain costly private information, and form information sharing coalitions. We study the social value of market information and the incentives for information sharing among farmers.
In Chapter 3, we offer a behavioral (bounded rationality) theory to explain product/technology adoption puzzle: Why superior investment goods are not widely purchased by consumers? We show that present-bias encourages procrastination, but discourages strategic consumer behavior. Advance selling is beneficial not only to the consumers as a commitment device, but also to the seller as a price discrimination instrument.
In Chapter 4, motivated by the fresh-product delivery industry, we propose a model of service operations systems in which customers are heterogeneous both in terms of their private delay sensitivity and taste preference. The service provider maximizes revenue through jointly optimal pricing strategies, steady-state scheduling rules, and probabilistic routing policies under information asymmetry. Our results guide service mechanism design using substitution strategies.
In Chapter 5, motivated by the puzzle of excessively long queue for low quality service in tourism and healthcare industries, we study the customers’ learning behaviors in the service operations systems, when they hold incorrect beliefs about the population distribution. We highlight a simple behavioral explanation for the blind ``buying frenzy'' in service systems with low quality: The customers under-estimate others' patience and are trapped in a false optimism about the service quality.
Chapter 6 concludes the dissertation with a summary of the main results and policy recommendations.
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Tejan, Sheikh. "Organizational Size's Effect Strategic Service Innovation and Strategic Service Delivery Innovation." ScholarWorks, 2018. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/6136.
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Empirical research has established that the service sector is the engine of growth in global economies. Despite the contributions of the service sector to global economies, research in service innovation has been neglected. There are still empirical research gaps especially on the predictors of strategic service delivery innovation (SSDI). The problem statement addressed in this study was that no research used the resource advantage theory to investigate the nature of the relationship between SSI and SSDI with OS as a possible moderator variable. Using resource advantage theory as the foundation, the purpose of this correlational study was to determine whether organizational size moderates the relationship between SSI and SSDI. Survey data were collected from a random sample of IT managers in the United States (n = 250), and data were analyzed using SPSS to specifically test the three hypotheses of the study. The key findings indicated that SSI was positively related to SSDI F (3, 246) = 428.153, p < 0.001 OS was positively related to SSI (t = 10.4, p < 0.001), and OS moderated the relationship between SSI and SSDI F (1, 245) = 0.005, p = 0.006. Using the conceptual framework of the R-A theory was statistically significant to investigate the relationships between the three key variables. Positive social change should be achieved when IT managers realize that strategic service innovation is positively related to strategic service innovation delivery, and is moderated by organizational size, then this information should factor into IT managers' strategic planning to positively impact social change by minimizing cost of production in service delivery to consumers. The outcome of this study was two-fold: academic significance of delivery innovation (SSDI) and managerial significance.
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Arroyo, Jill. "Job safety applying critical incident techniques to job safety for residential restaurant operations /." Menomonie, WI : University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2006. http://www.uwstout.edu/lib/thesis/2006/2006arroyoj.pdf.
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Lee, Seung Yup. "Proactive Coordination in Healthcare Service Systems through Near Real-Time Analytics." Thesis, Wayne State University, 2018. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10839804.
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The United States (U.S.) healthcare system is the most expensive in the world. To improve the quality and safety of care, health information technology (HIT) is broadly adopted in hospitals. While EHR systems form a critical data backbone for the facility, we need improved 'work-flow' coordination tools and platforms that can enhance real-time situational awareness and facilitate effective management of resources for enhanced and efficient care. Especially, these IT systems are mostly applied for reactive management of care services and are lacking when they come to improving the real-time "operational intelligence" of service networks that promote efficiency and quality of operations in a proactive manner. In particular, we leverage operations research and predictive analytics techniques to develop proactive coordination mechanisms and decision methods to improve the operational efficiency of bed management service in the network spanning the emergency department (ED) to inpatient units (IUs) in a hospital, a key component of healthcare in most hospitals. The purpose of this study is to deepen our knowledge on proactive coordination empowered by predictive analytics in dynamic healthcare environments populated by clinically heterogeneous patients with individual information changing throughout ED caregiving processes. To enable proactive coordination for improved resource allocation and patient flow in the ED-IU network, we address two components of modeling/analysis tasks, i.e., the design of coordination mechanisms and the generation of future state information for ED patients.
First, we explore the benefits of early task initiation for the service network spanning the emergency department (ED) and inpatient units (IUs) within a hospital. In particular, we investigate the value of proactive inpatient bed request signals from the ED to reduce ED patient boarding. Using data from a major healthcare system, we show that the EDs suffer from severe crowding and boarding not necessarily due to high IU bed occupancy but due to poor coordination of IU bed management activity. The proposed proactive IU bed allocation scheme addresses this coordination requirement without requiring additional staff resources. While the modeling framework is designed based on the inclusion of two analytical requirements, i.e., ED disposition decision prediction and remaining ED length of stay (LoS) estimation, the framework also accounts for imperfect patient disposition predictions and multiple patient sources (besides ED) to IUs. The ED-IU network setting is modeled as a fork-join queueing system. Unlike typical fork-join queue structures that respond identically to a transition, the proposed system exhibits state-dependent transition behaviors as a function of the types of entities being processed in servers. We characterize the state sets and sequences to facilitate analytical tractability. The proposed proactive bed allocation strategy can lead to significant reductions in bed allocation delay for ED patients (up to ~50%), while not increasing delays for other IU admission sources. We also demonstrate that benefits of proactive coordination can be attained even in the absence of highly accurate models for predicting ED patient dispositions. The insights from our models should give confidence to hospital managers in embracing proactive coordination and adaptive work flow technologies enabled by modern health IT systems.
Second, we investigate the quantitative modeling that analyzes the patterns of decreasing uncertainty in ED patient disposition decision making throughout the course of ED caregiving processes. The classification task of ED disposition decision prediction can be evaluated as a hierarchical classification problem, while dealing with temporal evolution and buildup of clinical information throughout the ED caregiving processes. Four different time stages within the ED course (registration, triage, first lab/imaging orders, and first lab/imaging results) are identified as the main milestone care stages. The study took place at an academic urban level 1 trauma center with an annual census of 100,000. Data for the modeling was extracted from all ED visits between May 2014 and April 2016. Both a hierarchical disposition class structure and a progressive prediction modeling approach are introduced and combined to fully facilitate the operationalization of prediction results. Multinomial logistic regression models are built for carrying out the predictions under three different classification group structures: (1) discharge vs. admission, (2) discharge vs. observation unit vs. inpatient unit, and (3) discharge vs. observation unit vs. general practice unit vs. telemetry unit vs. intensive care unit. We characterize how the accumulation of clinical information for ED patients throughout the ED caregiving processes can help improve prediction results for the three-different class groups. Each class group can enable and contribute to unique proactive coordination strategies according to the obtained future state information and prediction quality, to enhance the quality of care and operational efficiency around the ED. We also reveal that for different disposition classes, the prediction quality evolution behaves in its own unique way according to the gain of relevant information. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.)
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Pardede, Erna K. (Erna Kertasasmita). "Service bulletin inventory management and modeling for aerospace parts in customer service organization." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/81011.
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Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division; in conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT, 2013.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 73-74).
The Customer Service department of United Technology Corporation (UTC) Aerospace System is primarily responsible for providing spare parts, repair services, training, and technical support for products that UTC Aerospace Systems develops. The goal for spares turn-around time is a 7-day or less and for repair turn-around time is a 15 -day or less. In reality, most of parts needed to support spare parts' order and repair operations have lead times that are greater than the targeted turn-around time, which leads to a costly build-to-stock inventory policy. Proper inventory management becomes the focus of the department, given that both inadequate and excess inventory can have a financial impact and damage the overall health of the business. This thesis presents a project to develop a method and implement improvements to the current inventory management. Service Bulletins (SBs) are recommended procedures for repairing products. A SB is issued by UTC Aerospace Systems Customer Service to their customers when there is a safety concern to the current product, or when improvement to the original product design results in either increased performance or lower maintenance costs. Management of a Service Bulletin begins with an engineered solution to an existing product, followed by a ramp up in inventory to support the retrofit activities. Management of the inventory to support these Service Bulletins can be complex and very difficult as it depends on estimates of units in service and timing of units to be returned to UTC Aerospace Systems Repair, and part replacement rate estimates of certain components. Actual units returned, the timing of the returns, and the actual part replacement may vary from earlier estimates made by UTC Aerospace Systems technical personnel during the preparation stages, and therefore require good inventory planning. The author began the project by conducting interviews with key personnel., assessing the current state of service bulletin process, and documenting challenges faced with the current process. An initial hypothesis of the units returned model was made based on the nature of service bulletins (Safety, Retrofit, and Attrition). Data extraction and analysis of existing service bulletin units returned was conducted, focusing on the descriptive texts that were provided by repair personnel. Detailed reviews with subject matter experts were conducted to confirm the observations and analysis. Finally, a consensus was reached on the type of service bulletin that the author should focus on assessing. Mechanistic growth models of units returned were developed and proposed. The models could be used to determine order points based on average return rates and variance. Utilizing the models to build process monitoring tool in turn could support inventory reduction by at least 30% while reducing the amount of work order shortages.
by Erna K. Pardede.
S.M.
M.B.A.
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Tiwari, Vikram. "Information sharing and coordinated capacity management in service delivery networks." [Bloomington, Ind.] : Indiana University, 2008. http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:3331249.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, 2008.Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on Jul 23, 2009). Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 69-11, Section: A, page: 4414. Advisers: Kurt M. Bretthauer; Munirpallam A. Venkataramanan.
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Hackett, Stacey Lynn. "Improving administrative operations for better client service and appointment keeping in a medical/behavioral services clinic." Thesis, University of North Texas, 2008. https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc9099/.
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Appointment no-shows are a problem in healthcare organizations. It is important that appointment intake and scheduling processes are effective in both meeting client needs and efficient in meeting organizational business requirements. This study examined baseline levels of appointment keeping in a not-for-profit medical/behavioral pediatric services clinic, analyzed existing administrative processes, introduced additional appointment keeping reminders, and presented systematic, performance management tutorials for clinic employees. Results indicate an increase in percentage of appointments kept and a decrease in appointment lag time.
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Johansson, Pontus. "Adapting manufacturing strategy to industrial after-sales service operations." Doctoral thesis, Linköping : Department of Production Economics, Linköping Institute of Technology, 2006. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-7026.
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Rodrigues, Claudio Vilela. "Perícia criminal: uma abordagem de serviços." Universidade Federal de São Carlos, 2010. https://repositorio.ufscar.br/handle/ufscar/3370.
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Previous issue date: 2010-11-12Value creation for society and gains in efficiency, efficacy and effectiveness has been reason of concerning in public sector. Based on a broad literature about service operations management, service value and public service value, this thesis has taken for granted that to know the value which a service must deliver to its main stakeholders is prior to organize it. According to literature, value might be created since designing public institutions until managing them. To integrate the different perspectives, it was used an approach that evaluates service value creation from the consequences on to its customers and the necessary resources to deliver them. These consequences were analyzed under four dimensions: utility, justice, solidarity, and aesthetic. Recourses analyzed were competences and technology. Thus, this thesis s purpose was to define the value of Forensic Science Service (FSS) to its main stakeholders. The specific objectives, which generated propositions, were: to find out the role played by FSS in its interorganizational network, to find out the main FSS characteristics, to identify critical factors for value delivery, and to propose some guides to design FSS. To achieve these objectives, a five-year qualitative, longitudinal and exploratory case study was carried out in a FSS federation unity. Subsidiary information was collected in six other FSS. Data also were collected from FSS stakeholders, using multiple methods. Results were analyzed and criticized based on theory. The findings showed that FSS takes part in a Public Safety and Criminal Justice interorganizational network and provide it with a service: the production of forensic evidence. FSS operations present exams variety, process variability, layout by fixed position in front office, and stakeholders diversity. FSS association with science highlights its intangibility. FSS utility dimension is to link the suspect to crime scene (or innocent someone wrongly accused) using science and technology, that is, it helps to build a narrative, in which defendants behaviors are trialed according to the law. There are obstacles on delivering this value dimension, like miscoordination among network members on crime scene preservation, for instance. The justice dimension assumes that every citizen must have access to FSS, independent of any pre-existing condition. Although, FSS hasn t been universalized yet. The solidarity dimension has a deeply conexion with Human Rights, both in avoiding constraining suspects during criminal investigations, and contributing to fair trials, in the sense that either prosecution or defense have access to the service in equal terms. However, FSS subordination to the Police jeopardizes its impartiality. The aesthetic dimension consists on helping Police solve crimes without constraining suspects. Besides the technical competence, FSS personnel need a communicational competence to a full client s knowledge. The technological resources are part of production process and critical for value delivery. Concluding, FSS should be redesigned as an independent agency in order to increase Criminal Justice impartiality. Finally, the study encourages reflections about the difficulties of applying service operations management concepts to a public organization that is changing, and it´s characterized by the diversity of stakeholders and by its fluid and poorly defined, although important value.
A criação de valor para a sociedade e ganhos em eficiência, eficácia e efetividade são motivos de preocupação no setor público. Baseada em uma ampla literatura sobre gestão de operações de serviços e valor de serviço, incluindo serviços públicos, esta tese partiu do pressuposto de que saber o valor de um serviço para os seus principais stakeholders é prioritário para organizá-lo. Segundo a literatura, valor pode ser criado desde o desenho até a gestão de instituições. Para integrar as perspectivas, abordou-se a criação de valor a partir das consequências para os destinatários do serviço e dos recursos necessários para produzi-las. Estas consequências são analisadas sob quatro dimensões: utilidade, justiça, solidariedade e estética. E os recursos analisados foram competências e tecnologias. Assim, o propósito dessa tese foi definir o valor do serviço de perícia criminal para os seus principais stakeholders. Os objetivos específicos, que geraram proposições, foram: investigar o papel desempenhado pelo serviço em sua rede interorganizacional; abordar suas principais características; identificar fatores críticos para a entrega de valor e propor algumas diretrizes a fim de projetar o serviço. Com o propósito de atingir esses objetivos, um estudo de caso qualitativo, exploratório e longitudinal de cinco anos foi realizado em um órgão pericial. Subsidiariamente, coletaram-se informações em seis outros órgãos periciais. Foram coletados, também, dados de stakeholders do serviço, utilizando-se múltiplos métodos. Os resultados foram analisados e discutidos com base na teoria. Esses resultados mostraram que a perícia criminal integra uma rede interorganizacional de segurança pública e justiça criminal e produz um serviço: a prova pericial. O serviço apresenta variedade de exames, variabilidade de processos, arranjo posicional na linha de frente e diversidade de stakeholders. A associação entre o serviço e a ciência realça sua intangibilidade. A dimensão de utilidade do serviço é vincular o suspeito ao local do crime (ou inocentar alguém erroneamente acusado), utilizando a ciência e a tecnologia, ou seja, auxiliar a construção de uma narrativa, para que as condutas dos réus sejam julgadas de acordo com a lei. Há obstáculos na entrega desta dimensão, como, por exemplo, as dificuldades de coordenação entre os atores da rede na preservação do local de crime. A dimensão de justiça presume que todo cidadão tenha acesso ao serviço, independente de qualquer condição pré-existente. Entretanto, este acesso ainda não foi universalizado. A dimensão de solidariedade tem relação profunda com os Direitos Humanos, tanto para evitar que suspeitos sofram constrangimentos durante investigações criminais, quanto contribuindo para julgamentos justos, de forma que acusação e defesa tenham igual acesso ao serviço. Porém, a subordinação do serviço a Polícia compromete sua imparcialidade. A dimensão estética consiste em auxiliar a Polícia a desvendar crimes sem constranger suspeitos. Além da competência técnica, os peritos precisam ter competências comunicativas, para conhecerem os clientes. Os recursos tecnológicos são parte do processo de produção do serviço e críticos para a entrega de valor. Concluindo, o serviço de perícia criminal deveria ser redesenhado institucionalmente como um órgão independente, para incrementar a imparcialidade da Justiça. Finalmente, o estudo encoraja reflexões sobre as dificuldades em aplicar os conceitos de gestão de operações a um serviço público em mudança, que é caracterizado pela diversidade de stakeholders e por seu valor fluido e pouco definido, porém relevante.
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Guimarães, Mafalda Maria Lobo Machado de Mesquita. "An internal analysis of Amorim Turismo’s operations regarding food and beverage with a focus on operational efficiency and quality of service." Master's thesis, NSBE - UNL, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/10362/11779.
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A Work Project, presented as part of the requirements for the Award of a Masters Degree in Management from the NOVA – School of Business and EconomicsThis Work Project has the objective of performing an internal analysis of the operations undertaken at Amorim Turismo’s restaurants in their three hotels in Portugal. A more in depth analysis can be made through the study and improvement of its operational efficiency and quality of service utilizing methodologies such as ABC Classification, inventory management, facility layout optimization, demand forecast and RFM model. Various recommendations are suggested as part of an improvement plan for a better performance of the company.
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Chen, Xi. "Multi-period dynamic technician routing and scheduling problems with experience-based service times and stochastic customers." Diss., University of Iowa, 2016. https://ir.uiowa.edu/etd/2054.
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While home services is a fast growing industry, little attention has been given to the management of its workforce. To maintain growth, a key challenge for home-service companies is managing their expensive and limited labor resources. In particular, the time an employee needs to provide high quality service often depends on his/her experience. Importantly, experience increases over time, thus gradually decreasing the time required to provide service. By accounting for employee experience and the accompanying learning, managers can take advantage of capacity increases that result from experience, improving efficiency and enabling further growth.
We address the technician routing and scheduling problem from three perspectives, which in turn constitute the three parts of my dissertation. First, we introduce a model of technician routing that explicitly models individualized, experience-based learning. We convert the multi-day problem into a series of daily problems and approach the daily decision making in a myopic fashion. The results demonstrate that explicit modeling and the resulting ability to capture changes in productivity over time due to learning lead to significantly better and different solutions than those found when learning and workforce heterogeneity is ignored. We show that these differences result from the levels of specialization that occur in the workforce.
In the second part, we design solution methods that account for the fact that serving today's demand has implications, in terms of learning, for serving tomorrow's demand. We integrate the future information in the decision process to overcome the drawback of the myopic algorithm. We introduce the multi-period technician scheduling problem with experience-based service times and stochastic customers. Then, we model the problem as a Markov decision process and introduce an approximate dynamic programming-based solution approach. The model can be adapted to handle cases of worker attrition and new task types. Using an extensive computational study, we demonstrate the value of our approach versus a myopic solution approach that views the problem as a single-period problem.
In the final part, we continue exploring the value of integrating future information into the current period decision-making process for the Multi-period Dynamic Technician Scheduling Problems with Experience-based Service Times and Stochastic Customers discussed in Chapter 3. We propose an alternate approximate dynamic programming solution approach with basis function to approximate the value function by taking the advantage of the future information for the whole planning horizon. We turn to an offline simulation procedure to recursively update the coefficient vector of the basis function, which allows fast decision making within the execution phase. Our computational results demonstrate the value of the ADP solution approach with the basis function.
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Muhr, Sandra. "Inventory level Visibility : Reasons Causing Lack in Service Field Operations." Thesis, KTH, Skolan för industriell teknik och management (ITM), 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-279647.
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Visibility refers to availability of information in real-time to requiring actors so that strategy and operations can be monitored, controlled and changed. A symptom of lack of visibility in inventory management is when information in IT systems does not accurately match what is present in the physical inventory. While there are studies in the area of scientific literature documenting reasons for inventory inaccuracy, a literature gap exists for inventory accuracy in relation to service field operations. This study's objective is therefore to examine what reasons are causing lack of inventory visibility in service field operations and which affected KPI are the most impacted by this lack. The study was designed as a case study at an industrial tools and equipment manufacturer, featuring observations and interviews. A visibility assessment approach to extract affected KPI was also applied. The results found that reasons causing lack in service field operations stem from how company IT systems are designed and in how accurately information is entered by employees in said IT system. It further found that a service technicians' years of service influences the inventory accuracy of their van inventory. Unclearly defined areas of responsibility and accountability were further found to contribute to lack of inventory visibility. The most affected KPI impacted were found to be Inventory in % of COGS and Provision in % of inventory, the reasons being that a lack of visibility leads to higher inventory levels and an increase in provisions.Synlighet i en lagernivåkontext syftar till att information skall finnas tillgänglig för berörda aktörer i realtid så att strategier och operationer kan övervakas, kontrolleras och förändras. Ett symptom på synlighetsbrist i lagernivåer är när information i IT-system inte matchar med vad som finns fysiskt tillgängligt i lagret. Vetenskapliga studier har dokumenterat olika anledningar till felaktigheter i lagerinformation, dock existerar ett litteraturgap gällande hur felaktigheter i lagerinformation uppstår i relation till servicefältverksamheter. Syftet med denna studie är därför att undersöka vilka skäl som orsakar brist på lagersynlighet i servicefältverksamheter och vilka KPI som påverkas mest av denna brist. Studien utformades som en fallstudie hos ett industriföretag. Observationer och intervjuer utfördes, dessutom tillämpades en synbarhetsbedömningsmetod för att extrahera påverkade KPI. Resultatet av studien visar att orsaker som vållar brist i servicefältverksamheter orsakas av hur företagets IT-system är utformade och från hur noggrant information bokförs av anställda i nämnda IT-system. Studien fann även att en serviceteknikers år i tjänst påverkar graden av felaktigheter dennes tjänstefordons lagernivåer. Oklart definierade ansvarsområden och ansvarsskyldighet upptäcktes vidare bidra till bristande synlighet i lagernivåer. De mest drabbade KPI konstaterades vara Inventory in % of COGS och Provision in % of inventory, orsakerna till detta är att synlighetsbrister leder till högre lagernivåer och en ökad volym avsättningar.
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Hejazi, Mohammed Taj. "Managing Service Complexity for Sustainable Competitive Advantage: Theoretical Model and Empirical Investigation." University of Toledo / OhioLINK, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=toledo1464261973.
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Price, Gregory D. Jr. "Service based logistics optimization." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/90794.
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Thesis: M.B.A., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2014. In conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT.Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2014. In conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT.
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Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 109-110).
This thesis explores the use of a service based logistics optimization (SBLO) methodology for an inbound reverse logistics network. Currently, Quest Diagnostics solves the vehicle routing problem with time windows (VRPTW) in designing routes. The objective of the canonical VRPTW is to find a minimum cost route that visits every node once while meeting time window and capacity constraints without consideration to service levels. Since many of the nodes in Quest's logistics network receive multiple pickups per day, have time-sensitive biological specimens, and require different service levels, the SBLO is more aligned with service objectives. First, a spatio-temporal network model is created for every client in the logistics network. Next, a key service level metric (logistics turn-around-time) is defined. Finally, the SBLO is developed and tested on a small geographic area in Brighton, MA. The results of the two week pilot were promising; service levels improved 25%, labor costs per requisition decreased by 10%-15%, and additional capacity was created the 2nd and 3rd shifts. Although the effectiveness of the SBLO will be different for each route, the gains in service, reductions in cost, and increases in efficiency of the pilot warrant an investigation of the new optimization methodology applied to the entire logistics network. Quest could theoretically start processing 28% of the total New England testing volume by the 1st or 2nd shift, lowering operational costs, increasing efficiencies, and improving service levels dramatically. Additionally, this service based optimization strategy provides a value proposition that is more aligned with customer value expectations.
by Gregory D. Price, Jr.
M.B.A.
S.M.
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Burke, Dennis V. "Managers' Emotional Intelligence and Employee Turnover Rates in Quick Service." ScholarWorks, 2017. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/3661.
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Turnover rate is a benchmark economic measure and affects the customer service and profitability of organizations. The purpose of this correlational study was to examine the relationship between general managers' emotional intelligence (EI), operations evaluation scores (OE), and employee turnover rates at Brand X quick service restaurant (QSR) companies using Salovey and Mayer's theoretical framework of EI. Data were collected from a sample of 69 QSR general managers, with at least 6 months of experience, in the Southeastern United States using the EQ-i 2.0 self-assessment instrument. The mean employee turnover rate for the sample (M = 161%), was 157% greater than the 2013 average restaurant and accommodation turnover rate and 281.5% greater than the average overall private sector turnover rate for 2013. None of relationships between the predictor variables and the dependent variable in the multiple regression analysis model were statistically significant, at the p -?¤ .05 level. There was no significant relationship between manager's EI, OE scores and employee turnover rates. As a result, HR managers can redirect resources to finding alternate solutions for improving other components of employees' work environment for the subject population. By identifying QSR as one area of elevated employee turnover rate, the results of the study can serve as the basis for catalyzing research and developing findings for identifying alternate solutions to improve employees' health and reduce QSRs employees' work-related stress.
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Doss, Ryan Garrett. "Principal-agent alignment and relational incentive contracts in high-performance service operations." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/90776.
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Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2014. In conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT.Thesis: M.B.A., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2014. In conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 126-127).
This thesis focuses on the creation of a high-performance service operations organization. As organizations increasingly compete on service quality, increased attention has been given to measuring, tracking, and improving customer satisfaction. This thesis 1) provides a novel framework for service quality improvement and 2) explores concepts in game theory, relational contracts, and incentive mechanism design that impact service quality in the modern organization. The framework introduced in this thesis is comprised of four distinct steps. In the first step, service quality is quantitatively measured and drivers of service quality are determined both through qualitative methods and through statistical analysis on a customer-by- customer basis. In the second step, key drivers of service quality are addressed through process redesign and operational improvement. In the third step, the alignment of service operations incentive mechanisms with employee behavior consistent with high service quality is analyzed and considered in the context of building a high-performance service organization. Finally, the role of organizational learning and the relational contracts that may help to sustain a culture of experimentation, learning, and improvement are considered. These concepts are applied to a host organization, Atlantic Energy, by way of case study throughout this thesis; this acts to provide a concrete example of the application of these concepts and shows an example of the effectiveness of the framework when compared to traditional methods in service operations improvement.
by Ryan Garrett Doss.
S.M.
M.B.A.
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Heim, Gregory R. "Management of technology and quality in electronic consumer service operations : applications to electric food retailing /." Diss., ON-CAMPUS Access For University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Click on "Connect to Digital Dissertations", 2000. http://www.lib.umn.edu/articles/proquest.phtml.
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Barnard, James. "A MULTI-VIEW FRAMEWORK FOR DEFINING THE SERVICES SUPPLY CHAIN USING OBJECT ORIENTED METHODOLOGY." Doctoral diss., University of Central Florida, 2006. http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ETD/id/2378.
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Supply-chain management is the practice combining theory from logistics, operations management, production management and inventory control. Therefore, it is often associated exclusively with manufacturing or materials management industries. Application of supply-chain management to other industries often results in implementations that do not satisfy the needs of the involved enterprises. To improve the implementation of supply-chain solutions outside of the materials management and manufacturing industries there is a need for industry specific standards. One industry sector in need of a standard is the services industry. The current problem facing the services sector is the inability to adapt current frameworks to the provisioning of a service. Provisioning a service translates into the supply-chain for the services industry since it influences the services supply and demand. A solution to the problem is development of a supply-chain standard specific to the provisioning of a service. Objectives of the research are to define comprehensively, a new services supply-chain model that is applicable to the United States government classification of a service and to ensure the scalability and integration capability of the model. To satisfy these objectives, it is necessary to understand the characteristics describing the services supply-chain process. The characteristics are the input into deriving the processes and terminology of the generalized services supply-chain. Terminology and processes are then used to create a supply-chain framework using input from the Supply-Chain Council's Supply-Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model. SCOR provides a foundation for describing the processes and defining the terminology in an already accepted format. A final verification of the model by industry experts insures conceptually that the framework is applicable to the current problem. This research developed a three-level framework similar in structure to the SCOR framework. Presentation of the framework is a specification that defines and sequences the processes for implementation. A detailed case study applies the model using the framework and the definition of a comprehensive supply-chain.Ph.D.
Department of Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
Engineering and Computer Science
Industrial Engineering and Management Systems
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Schäfer, Fabian [Verfasser], Alexander [Akademischer Betreuer] Hübner, Jens [Gutachter] Brunner, Alexander [Gutachter] Hübner, and Clemens [Gutachter] Thielen. "Heuristics in Service Operations Management / Fabian Schäfer ; Gutachter: Jens Brunner, Alexander Hübner, Clemens Thielen ; Betreuer: Alexander Hübner." München : Universitätsbibliothek der TU München, 2020. http://d-nb.info/1214808514/34.
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Fox, Zebulon. "Effective Manufacturers' Strategies for Service Innovations." ScholarWorks, 2019. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/6427.
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In the United States, more than 50% of managers offering services in the manufacturing industry report failed service initiatives. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies that manufacturing managers used to sustain their business for longer than 5 years. The population consisted of 3 manufacturing organization managers offering business services to support petroleum and coal companies who have sustained their business operations in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States for longer than 5 years. Data were collected from semistructured interviews and organization documents were analyzed through the perspective of the strategic service innovation theory conceptual framework. Yin's 5-step process for data analysis: compiling, disassembling, reassembling, interpreting, and concluding was used to identify multiple themes through data saturation. Multiple themes emerged from data analysis, including service innovation strategies such as strategic innovation and competitive advantage, customer-focus strategies including customer's needs and providing solutions, resource strategies consisting of internal resources and knowledge resources, and external network strategies including external market and relationships. Managers in the manufacturing industry can use the findings of this study to improve business practices by implementing strategies to offer services through service innovation processes, developing customer focus, considering resources, and leveraging external networks. The findings of this study may be used to affect positive social change to improve socioeconomic conditions by increasing employment opportunities for residents of communities with petroleum and coal manufacturing companies in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States.
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THELIN, CARL, and PETER WALLANDER. "Production Planning and Control in an Ambulatory Care Service Provider in Sweden." Thesis, KTH, Industriell Management, 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-189463.
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Sjukvården i Sverige står inför flertalet stora utmaningar i dag. Med en växande och åldrande befolkning ökar vårdbehovet i både komplexitet och volym. Samtidigt är resurserna begränsade vilket leder till att sjukvården måste bli mer effektiv i sitt vårderbjudande. Sjukvården har därför börjat titta på management-teorier från andra branscher, främst bilindustrin. Ambulanta vårdgivare, enheter som utför vårdtjänster utan egna inneliggande patienter, är centrala i produktivitets och effektiviseringsförbättringar i de system de agerar i. Denna studie har undersökt hur forskningens idéer kring produktionsplanering och kontroll kan användas av en ambulant vårdgivare. Detta examensarbete är baserat på en fallstudie genomförd på röntgenavdelningen på Danderyds sjukhus i Stockholms län. Fallstudien har utgjorts av framförallt kvalitativ datainsamling genom semistrukturerade intervjuer understödda av kvantitativ produktionsdata och en benchmarkingstudie på röntgenmottagningen på Universitetssjukhuset i Linköping. Det empiriska bidraget i fallstudien har inkluderat en kartläggning av arbetsprocessen i röntgenmottagningen på Danderyds sjukhus. Processen kunde delas upp i tre faser: 1. Förberedelser, 2. Undersökning, och 3. Diagnosticering och dokumentering. Utifrån den kartlagda processen och en utförlig litteraturstudie om produktionsplanering och kontroll kunde tre huvudsakliga slutsatser dras: (1) implementering av produktionsplanering och kontroll måste utgå från en grundlig förståelse för processerna hos vårdgivaren och syfta till att verka för både kliniska och operationella mål, (2) produktionsplanerings- och kontrollaktiviteter måste anpassas till vårdgivarens omgivning, och (3) kontinuerlig återkoppling från kvalitets och produktivitetsmål är oumbärliga för framgångsrik utnyttjning av produktionsplanerings och kontroll i en ambulant vårdgivare. Detta examensarbete kommer hjälpa ambulanta vårdgivare att möte de utmaningar och produktivitetskrav dessa står inför i Sverige genom att utnyttja potentialen med produktionsplanering och kontroll.The healthcare sector in Sweden faces several challenges today: a growing and ageing population increases demand in terms of both volume and complexity whereas monetary resources available do not follow suit, forcing care givers to become more efficient in their operation. The healthcare sector has for this reason in recent years become more and more inclined to implement management theories developed in other industries, primarily the automotive industry. Ambulatory care service units, who provide care services on an outpatient basis, are vital in productivity improvements in the system they are acting in but have been somewhat neglected by both policy makers and academia. This study has therefore investigated how production planning and control theories, principles and methods can be utilised in an ambulatory care service unit in a major emergency hospital in Sweden. This thesis is based on a case study conducted at the radiology department at Danderyds sjukhus, an emergency hospital located in Stockholm County Council. The case study mainly consisted of qualitative data gathering using semi-structured interviews with aid from quantitative data on department performance. The empirical contributions of the case study included a process mapping of a generic process flow prevalent in all subunits of the department in the radiology department. The main process could be divided into three main phases: 1. Preparation, 2. Examination, and 3. Diagnosing and documentation. Using the mapped out process and a thorough literature review on production planning and control three main conclusions could be drawn: (1) an implementation of production planning and control should begin with a deep understanding of process flows in the unit and aim to promote both operational and medical objectives, (2) production planning and control activities should be adapted to the environment the unit is acting in, and (3) continuous feedback from performance measurements is vital to successful production planning and control initiatives. This study will help ambulatory care service units to meet the challenge of increased demand they currently face in Sweden by utilising the potential in production planning and control.
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CARMO, ANNIBAL JOSE RORIS RODRIGUEZ SCAVARDA DO. "EVOCATIVE METHODOLOGY FOR CAUSAL MAPPING AND ITS PERSPECTIVE IN THE OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT WITH INTERNET-BASED APPLICATIONS FOR SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT AND SERVICE MANAGEMENT." PONTIFÍCIA UNIVERSIDADE CATÓLICA DO RIO DE JANEIRO, 2004. http://www.maxwell.vrac.puc-rio.br/Busca_etds.php?strSecao=resultado&nrSeq=5331@1.
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COORDENAÇÃO DE APERFEIÇOAMENTO DO PESSOAL DE ENSINO SUPERIORA compreensão dos atuais processos produtivos é essencial neste momento em que o conhecimento tornou-se um importante gerador de valor. Uma visão holística dos conhecimentos que estão disseminados, de forma dispersa, entre profissionais, consultores e acadêmicos é necessária para a síntese de novas teorias da produção. Pesquisadores de gerência de operações freqüentemente usam mapeamento causal como um mecanismo para construir e comunicar teorias, particularmente em suporte à pesquisa empírica. As abordagens mais usuais para capturar dados cognitivos para um mapa causal são brainstorming e entrevistas, os quais exigem muito tempo e apresentam um significativo custo em sua implementação. Esta tese visa gerar uma metodologia (Metodologia Evocativa para Mapeamento Causal - ECMM) voltada para aplicação em pesquisa sobre gerência de operações para coletar e estruturar dados disseminados de forma desagregada, como conhecimento e experiência profissional e acadêmica, contidos nas opiniões de um grande número de especialistas dispersos demograficamente e geograficamente. Isto é alcançado evocando opiniões, codificando-as em variáveis e reduzindo o grupo em conceitos e relações. Tem-se uma especial preocupação em conseguir este objetivo em tempo factível e com baixo custo. A coleta de dados é assíncrona, via Internet, possui dois ou três turnos (à semelhança do método Delfos). A análise de dados usa codificação, técnica de grupamento hierárquica e escalamento multidimensional para identificar conceitos na forma de mapas cognitivos. A ECMM foi ilustrada com aplicações que demonstram sua viabilidade. Aplicou-se nas áreas de gestão da cadeia de suprimento (SCM) e administração de serviços (SM) com a participação de aproximadamente 1.300 respondentes de empresas e universidades de quase 100 países. Dentre os desdobramentos para pesquisas futuras propõe-se aplicar nas áreas de ECMM em SCM e SM visando a uni-las em um tema: gestão da cadeia de suprimento de serviços.
The understanding of the present productive processes is essential at this moment when knowledge became an important value creator. A holistic vision of the pieces of knowledge that are spread out and dispersed among practitioners, consultants and academics is necessary for the synthesis of new theories of production. Operations management researchers often use causal mapping as a key tool for building and communicating theory, particularly in support of empirical research. The widely accepted approaches for capturing cognitive data for a causal map are informal brainstorming and interviews, which require a time- consuming and significant cost of implementation. This dissertation aims at creating a methodology (Evocative Causal Mapping Methodology - ECMM) intended for use in operations management research for collecting and structuring dispersed data spread out as practical and research knowledge, and experience contained in the opinions of a large number of specialists demographically and geographically scattered. This is accomplished by evoking opinions, encoding them into variables and reducing the resulting set to concepts and relationships. A special concern is to achieve this goal in a feasible time and cost- efficient way. ECMM consists of two or three round, Delphi- like, Internet-based asynchronous data collection, and a data analysis that uses a coding panel of experts, hierarchical cluster analysis and multidimensional scaling for identifying concepts on cognitive map formats. Applications illustrate ECMM and demonstrate its feasibility. They were developed on supply chain management (SCM) and service management (SM) involving about 1,300 respondents of companies and universities of about 100 countries. Among possible unfolding future studies, this dissertation proposes to apply ECMM in SCM and SM aiming at unifying them into a single topic: service supply chain management.
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Kreidler, Stefan. "Ökonomik der industriellen Bearbeitung : Designverbesserungen, Verfahrenswahl & Kalkulation in Produktionsnetzwerken /." Zürich : Verl. Eco-Performance, 2000. http://bvbr.bib-bvb.de:8991/F?func=service&doc_library=BVB01&doc_number=009117977&line_number=0001&func_code=DB_RECORDS&service_type=MEDIA.
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Al-Zaidi, Asma Nasser Mohammed. "Exploring the interrelationships among operations management practices, customer perceptions of service quality and performance of hotels." Thesis, University of Nottingham, 2012. http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/14495/.
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Hospitality and tourism are important sectors of any economy. In the service sector, achieving a level of service quality that satisfies customers usually results in a competitive advantage in the market. The concept of service quality in hotels has been the subject of many research studies and there are numerous published works in the field. However, only a few studies have focused on the determinants of service quality for hotels using a set of comprehensive criteria. Thus, conceptualizing a service quality model that identifies the dimensions of service quality that affect customers' satisfaction is needed for hotels. In addition, the role of operations management practices in managing service quality cannot be denied. The available literature on the hotel industry in terms of managerial practices is unfortunately poor and needs to be enriched. Logically, better operations management practices in managing hotels' service quality would have a direct positive impact on performance, but there could also be some indirect (mediating) impact on performance through customer satisfaction. The purpose of this research is to build an effective model for measuring service quality in the hotel industry through critical evaluation of the available literature in service in general and hotels in particular. The built model has aspects of customer's perceptions of service quality, management's perceptions of operations management practices and of performance. The existing literature has been used to conceptualize a service quality model that meets the purpose of this research. The conceptualized model has eleven dimensions; seven for customer perceptions on service quality and four for management perceptions of operations management practices in managing service and on performance. The dimensions of customer's perceptions are: employee behaviour/attitude, price fairness, non-technological tangibility, technological tangibility, in-consumption positive emotions, in-consumption negative emotions and overall customer satisfaction. The introductions of technology and in-consumption emotions are one of the main contributions of this research. Though previous researchers have supported the use of these two criteria in evaluating service quality of hotels, the researcher is not aware of any quantitative service quality study that used these two dimensions. Of particular note is that emotion is evaluated in terms of its frequency of occurrence during the service experience, unlike previous studies. The dimensions of operations management practices are managing employees, managing process and customer feedback. Managers' perceptions on hotel performance were also included in the conceptualized model. Linking operations management practices to overall customer satisfaction is another contribution of this research. Many previous studies attempted to understand the direct link between service quality and performance; although there is an equally dominant view in the literature that the relationship between service quality and performance could be more complex. Hence, there could also be some indirect (mediating) impact on performance through customer satisfaction. This research tested whether there is a mediating effect by customer satisfaction between operations management practices and performance. This test also contributed to the existing literature on service as a whole and on hotels in particular. Moreover, a moderation test of customers' characteristics; gender, purpose of hotel stay, age and education, is also performed in this research, further strengthening the value of this research. Responses from two independently administered surveys have been used in this research, one for hotel customers and a second for hotel managers. Data has been collected in two international airports and a number of hotels in Oman. A sample size of 689 observations was used to test the relationships developed in the conceptualized model. First, factor analysis was carried out on the data to validate the developed dimensions. Exploratory factor analysis (EF A) was performed to explore the dimensions and then confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was performed to confirm the validity of the dimensions. The measurement model has been checked for its reliability and validity using criteria developed from the available literature. Then, the developed hypotheses were tested using a structural equation model (SEM) using partial least square approach (PLS-SEM). The results have generally confirmed the original conceptualizations. All service quality dimensions, namely employee behaviour/attitude, non-technological tangibility, technological tangibility, positive in-consumption emotions and negative in-consumption emotions and operations management practices, namely managing employees, managing process and customer feedback, have been found to have a statistically significant influence on the overall satisfaction of guests. The hypotheses on the moderating effects of customers' characteristics were partially supported. The results proved that management practices have direct and significant effects on performance. In addition, customer satisfaction was found to be partially mediating the relationship between operations management practices and performance. Knowledge about the dimensions of service quality and operations management practices in hotel industry is valuable for managers in the context of managing and assessing the quality of their service. This research has used the available literature to build a model that has interrelationships between operations management practices, customer perceptions of service quality and performance in the hotel industry. The model has introduced two new dimensions, technology and emotions, which has enriched the literature of service quality evaluation. There is no doubt that managerial awareness of the dimensions influencing customer satisfaction will help in developing competitive advantages for their hotels. In addition, linking operational management practices to overall customer satisfaction and testing its direct and indirect effect on performance has also contributed to knowledge. Thus, in order for managers to increase the hotels' performance in terms of customer satisfaction, special considerations need to be carried through their practices. Moreover, managers' awareness of the moderating role of the customers' characteristics will help in better managing the quality of service provided. The findings of this study in particular will open new directions for future research in the hotel industry in particular and the service industries as a whole.
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Yoon, Eunju. "Food defense management plan implementation intention : an application of protection motivation theory." Diss., Manhattan, Kan. : Kansas State University, 2007. http://hdl.handle.net/2097/439.
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Ponsignon, Frédéric. "Process design in an information-intensive service delivery system : an empirical study." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10036/104654.
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The objective of this thesis is to explore the design of operational processes in information-intensive service delivery systems. Empirical data is presented which builds upon existing literature within the Business Process Management (BPM) and Service Operations Management (SOM) disciplines. Adopting a theory building mode, the thesis concludes with the formulation of several research propositions which specify the design characteristics of the processes that provide the service concept to the customer. The research addresses a number of gaps in the literature. First, there is little empirical evidence concerning the relationship between the service concept, customer inputs, and process design. Second, service classification schemes promote homogeneous thinking in the design of service systems delivering diverse service concepts. Third, the BPM literature provides generic process design principles which offer limited theoretical insights into the design requirements of operational processes. Finally, there is a need for process design research in information-intensive service organisations. A research framework that integrates theoretical models addressing service process design is investigated using a single case study approach. Fieldwork was carried out over a sixteen-month period in a large electricity supplier in the UK. In contrast to the macro-orientation found within the literature, this study employs a more granular level of analysis to address the unique requirements of ‘service concept – processes’ pairs. This approach results in a number of important findings which, in several instances, are in contradiction to current thinking. First, the results empirically validate the theoretical relationship between service concept, customer inputs, and process design. Different service concepts lead to different process designs, and the more customised the service concept, the more the process is uniquely designed. Significant differences in the design of the individual processes that collectively provide the service concept to the customer are highlighted. The results also provide some new insights into the design of front office – back office activities as well as into the design characteristics of processes characterised by low customer contact. In addition, the study refutes the view that generic process design principles are universally applicable irrespective of the context in which the processes operate. Finally, the research findings show that a process-based view of service systems allows for heterogeneity; that is differences in the design of service delivery processes within the same organisation.
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Laforteza, Leonard D. "Inventory optimization of class IX supply blocks for deploying U.S. Marine Corps Combat Service Support Elements." Monterey, Calif. : Springfield, Va. : Naval Postgraduate School ; Available from National Technical Information Service, 1997. http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA333438.
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Jansen, Marc Christiaan. "Contract design for collaborative response to service disruptions." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2017. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/266247.
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This dissertation studies firms' strategic interactions in anticipation of random service disruption following technology failure. In particular it is aimed at understanding how contracting decisions between a vendor and one or multiple clients affect the firms' subsequent decisions to ensure disruption response and recovery are managed as efficiently as possible. This dissertation consists of three studies that were written as standalone papers seeking to contribute to the literature on contract design and technology management in operations management. Together, the three studies justify the importance of structuring the right incentives to mitigate disruption risks. In the first study we contribute to this literature by means of an analytical model which we use to examine how a client and vendor should balance investments in response capacity when both parties' efforts are critical in resolving disruption and each may have different risk preferences. We study the difference in the client's optimal expected utility between a case in which investment in response capacity is observable and a case in which it is not and refer to the difference in outcomes between the two cases as the cost of complexity. Firstly, we show that the cost of complexity to the client is decreasing in the risk aversion of vendor but increasing in her own risk aversion. Secondly, we find that a larger difference in risk aversion between a client and vendor leads to underinvestment in system uptime in case the client's investment is observable, yet the opposite happens when the client’s investment is not observable. In the second study we further examine the context of the first study through a controlled experiment. We examine how differences in risk aversion and access to information on a contracting partner’s risk preferences interact in affecting contracting and investment decisions between the client and vendor. Comparing subject decisions with the conditionally optimal benchmarks we arrive at two observations that highlight possible heuristic decision biases. Firstly, subjects tend to set and hold on to an inefficiently high investment level even though it is theoretically optimal to adjust decisions under changing differences in risk preferences. Secondly, subjects tend to set and hold on to a penalty that is too high when interacting with more risk averse vendors and too low in case the vendor is equally risk averse. Furthermore, cognitive feedback on the vendor’s risk aversion appears to have counterproductive effects on subject’s performance in the experiment, suggesting cognitive overload can have a reinforcing effect on the heuristic decision biases observed. In the third study we construct a new analytical model to examine the effect of contract design on a provider's response capacity allocation in a setting where multiple clients may be disrupted and available response capacity is limited. The results show that while clients may be incentivized to identify and report network disruptions, competition for scarce emergency resources and the required investment in understanding their own exposure may incentivize clients to deliberately miscommunicate with the vendor.
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ZHANG, JIANG. "THREE ESSAYS ON INVENTORY MANAGEMENT." Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies / OhioLINK, 2004. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1087418721.
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Cruz, Albert P. "Knowledge sharing and competitiveness of professional service firms: A case study." ScholarWorks, 2011. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/903.
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The problem addressed in this study is that little action is taken to create the social aspects and social value of knowledge-sharing culture within organizations. There is a need for increased understanding of the behavioral side of knowledge management. The purpose of this study was to focus on knowledge sharing from a behavioral perspective. Knowledge management is defined as the accumulation, protection, and leverage of knowledge. This research study investigated the relationship between knowledge sharing and competitiveness and approached the field of knowledge management from the organizational, cultural, and behavioral perspectives. The research questions examined how knowledge workers described the parameters and conditions of knowledge sharing, as well as the relationship between knowledge sharing and competitiveness of professional service firms. The overall research design employed three focus groups and individual interviews of a selected professional service firm. Similarity and commonalities of data from interviews were color coded and labeled. Field notes, handouts, and a qualitative research computer program were used to triangulate data. Results of the study generated and established five specific categories. The categories of spiritual essence of business, believability and openness, and ethical responsibility present the mind and spiritual connection to enhance the value of knowledge sharing as a factor for competitiveness. In addition, the categories of whole brain learning and connectivity are context for creating a learning organization. The implications for social change include a clearer understanding of knowledge sharing which can increase organizational competitiveness. The effect of the added competitiveness of professional service firms can result in enhancing economic and social value of their key stakeholders.
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Mumayiz, S. A. "A methodology for planning and operations management of airport passenger terminals : a capacity/level of service approach." Thesis, Loughborough University, 1985. https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/2134/7403.
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A methodology is presented herewith to assist in the systematic evaluation of operational conditions of the vital and dynamic processing facilities of airport terminals, which could enhance planning and management practices adopted for airports. The methodology focusses on the relation between capacity of individual facilities and levels of service that passengers experience in them, whereby important operational aspects of those facilities are examined and analysed. The developed methodology consists of two main parts: Capacity procedure, and Level of Service procedure. The first establishes the relations (Performance models) between demand levels (flows) that may possibly be accommodated by individual facilities, and some service measures of particular relevance to passengers that could be used to assess the performance of facilities when subjected to various demand levels. To accomplish this, simulation techniques are utilized to synthesize required information. In the second, the way by which a framework of service standards could be established is presented. Levels of service are derived by asking passengers (through appropriate surveys) to assess service standards based upon their perception to service conditions at a particular time, and their response to different variations of service resulting at different demand levels. Through this method, Perception-Response models are derived, where they are used in the case studies conducted, to delineate the levels of service for processing facilities of the airport terminal considered.
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Kulling, Karl Christian. "Optimized distribution supply chain for improved customer service." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/99029.
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Thesis: M.B.A., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2015. In conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT.Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2015. In conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 54-55).
In an attempt to attract consumers, companies are offering an increasingly wide range of product varieties to cater to each consumers individual needs and desires. This behavior leads to fragmentation of demand that increases supply chain complexity and cost. At Company X, this behavior is also visible. There is a proliferation of product types and sizes as these are increasingly used for product differentiation by both the company and original equipment manufacturers that use its products. This, in turn, lowers demand per product and disaggregates it, resulting in higher variability. Some of Company Xs products that are affected by the changes in demand patterns, and consequently have relatively low demand, are also highly profitable. This relatively small, but increasingly important segment of the market is not well served by the existing supply chain that has been optimized for large, steady flows of products. Service levels for products with the new demand patterns are low, leading to customer dissatisfaction and lost sales. We hypothesize that Company X can improve its customer service, as measured by service level, fill rate, and on time delivery rate, for consumer products by adopting a segmented supply chain. The current supply chain is optimized for products that have a steady and large demand, but it undersupplies products with low or variable demand. A segmented supply chain would allow each segment of products to be served by a supply chain that is optimized to that segments demand characteristics. Traditional manufacturing would provide a low-unit-cost source of products, while a new, agile small-scale manufacturing source would provide a responsive source of products.
by Karl Christian Kulling.
M.B.A.
S.M.
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Skelton, Orlando. "Exploring Knowledge Management Practices in Service-Based Small Business Enterprises." ScholarWorks, 2015. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/272.
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Small business enterprises (SBEs) are significant contributors to business growth and employment in the United States, but despite governmental support, the failure rate of SBEs is high. Some small business leaders lack the critical management skills to detect or discover when underperformance in revenue-generation is due to gaps in organizational knowledge or business practices associated with managing knowledge assets. Guided by the knowledge-based view of the firm, the purpose of this multiple case study was to address that gap by exploring the skills needed by leaders to understand how deficiencies in their knowledge management practices contribute to underperformance. Semistructured interview data were collected from a sample of 10 small business leaders in the northeast and west. Data from publicly available documentation consisting of sales brochures, press releases, and participant company websites were also collected. Data analysis entailed using keyword frequency comparisons, coding techniques, and cluster analysis. The key themes indicate that the participants' document management practices and misaligned core business practices impeded value creation. The recommended change in business practices for small business leaders is to formalize social engagement with customers, use document management tools, and adopt process management techniques. The implications for social change include mitigating the harmful effects of business failure on society associated with job loss, stress-related disabilities, and reduced charitable donations to groups serving disadvantaged citizens. The beneficiaries of this research include small business leaders, business practitioners, and policy makers.
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Printezis, Antonios. "Pricing Models for Admission in Service Systems." Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies / OhioLINK, 2005. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1112718326.
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Frumin, Michael S. "Automatic data for applied railway management : passenger demand, service quality measurement, and tactical planning on the London Overground Network." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/61512.
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Thesis (S.M. in Transportation)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Operations Research Center, 2010.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 201-209).
The broad goal of this thesis is to demonstrate the potential positive impacts of applying automatic data to the management and tactical planning of a modern urban railway. Tactical planning is taken here to mean the set of transport-specific analysis and decisions required to manage and improve a railway with time horizons measured in weeks, months, or up to a year and little or no capital investment requirements. This thesis develops and tests methods to (i) estimate on-train loads from automatic measurements of train payload weight, (ii) estimate origin-destination matrices by combining multiple types of automatic data, (iii) study passenger incidence (station arrival) behavior relative to the published timetable, (iv) characterize service quality in terms of the difference between automatically measured passenger journey times and journey times implied by the published timetable. It does so using (i) disaggregate journey records from an entry- and exit-controlled automatic fare collection system, (ii) payload weight measurements from "loadweigh" sensors in train suspension systems, and (iii) aggregate passenger volumes from electronic station gatelines. The methods developed to analyze passenger incidence behavior and service quality using these data sources include new methodologies that facilitate such analysis under a wide variety of service conditions and passenger behaviors. The above methods and data are used to characterize passenger demand and service quality on the rapidly growing, largely circumferential London Overground network in London, England. A case study documents how a tactical planning intervention on the Overground network was influenced by the application of these methods, and evaluates the outcomes of this intervention. The proposed analytical methods are judged to be successful in that they estimate the desired quantities with sufficient accuracy and are found to make a positive contribution to the Overground's tactical planning process. It is concluded that relative measures of service quality such as the one developed here can be used in cross-sectional analysis to inform tactical planning activity. However, such measures are of less utility for longitudinal evaluation of tactical planning interventions when the basis against which service quality is judged (in this case the timetable) is changed. Under such circumstances, absolute measures, such as total observed passenger journey times, should be used as well.
by Michael S. Frumin.
S.M.
S.M.in Transportation
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Matthias, Olga. "Developing a customisation blueprint for management consultancies to better serve their clients." Doctoral thesis, University of Bradford, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10454/6412.
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The purpose of this DBA is to develop a Customisation Blueprint so that consultancies can provide a more tailored, responsive service to clients. This study seeks to find out what matters to clients when purchasing consultancy, how clients substantiate this and how it affects their decision-making. This study also seeks to establish if the factors influencing buyer¿s evaluation of the consultant can be favourably influenced by the consultants.
By fulfilling client requirements more precisely and effectively, consultants are able to better serve their clients. In this way they are also able to enhance both ongoing relationship and reputation.
The history of consultancy is examined to establish the unfurling and growth of the industry and to understand the forces which have shaped its evolution. Relational and Operations literature is examined to establish what previous research is able to contribute to this quest for understanding what consultants need to do to better serve their clients. Financial Services and Utilities are the two largest private-sector buyers of consultancy. Managers involved in the purchase of consulting services from a selection of these companies were interviewed to capture how consultants are engaged and what selection criteria are the most important.
A combination of guidance from the literature and an understanding of what matters to clients is used to develop a systematic approach for consultants to more clearly identify and articulate client needs and thereby serve them better. The outcome is the development of a Customisation Blueprint, a framework to personalise responsiveness and thus enhance customer satisfaction.
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Luna, Alberto M. B. A. Sloan School of Management. "Characterizing and improving the service level agreement at Amazon." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/99011.
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Thesis: M.B.A., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2015. In conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT.Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division, 2015. In conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (page 72).
Amazon's Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a promise to its customers that they will receive their orders on time. At the Fulfillment Center (FC) level, the SLA is based on the capability to fulfill open orders scheduled to ship at each departure time. Each center's capability depends on a complex interaction between fluctuating product demand and time-dependent processes. By lowering SLA, Amazon could provide an enhanced the customer experience, especially for same day delivery (SDD). However, providing additional time to the customer also means that the FCs have less time available to fulfill open orders, placing the customer experience of those orders at an increased risk of a missed delivery. This thesis explores cycle time reductions and throughput adjustments required to reduce the SLA at one of Amazon's Fulfillment Centers. First, a method to analyze time-dependent cycle time is used to evaluate the individual truck departure times, revealing that the current process conditions have difficulty meeting current demand. Then, using lean principles, process changes are tested to assess their ability to improve the current processes and allow for an SLA reduction. Although a 1% increase in capacity is possible by improving the processes, system constraints make the changes impractical for full implementation. Consequently, a capacity analysis method reveals that an additional capacity of up to 9.38% is needed to improve the current process conditions and meet current demand. The capacity analysis also reveals that reducing the SLA from its current state requires up to 13.79% more capacity to achieve a 50% reduction in SLA. Through capacity adjustments, the added cost of late orders is mitigated, resulting in a reduced incidence of orders late to schedule and a reduced risk of missed deliveries. The methods utilized in this thesis are applicable to other Amazon FC's, providing a common capability and capacity analysis to aid in fulfillment operations.
by Alberto Luna.
M.B.A.
S.M.
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Wonsowicz, Johanna Christine. "Establishing an inventory management process to meet high customer service levels in a vaccines organization." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/59189.
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Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering; in conjunction with the Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 76-77).
Inventory management is a complex aspect of Supply Chain Management that is frequently discussed and debated due to the fact that it has a high impact on customer satisfaction as well as financial performance. This thesis addresses how an inventory management policy was developed and established in a vaccines company where customer service is the top priority and product quantities are high. The work in this thesis is from a six month internship at Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics in Marburg, Germany. Project work focused on three inventory management questions: What are the right inventory targets for each product? What is the process to manage, monitor and maintain the inventory targets? How should the inventory targets be measured and controlled? The results from this project show that an effective way to set inventory targets is through the combination of analytical inventory calculations and the strategic analysis of the business environment. A detailed inventory model was built in Microsoft Excel that uses common inventory formulas and considers critical product attributes such as shelf-life, process lead times, batch sizing, replenishment frequency and capacity constraints to calculate the inventory targets. The model results are part of the larger inventory management policy that was created and incorporated into the Supply Chain group's Sales & Operations Planning process. The complete inventory management policy addresses the details of regularly setting inventory targets, how they should be maintained and tracked and defines clear roles and responsibilities.
by Johanna Christine Wonsowicz.
S.M.
M.B.A.
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Brown, Rachael Annette. "Exploring the Performance of the Financial Service Cooperative Industry in Grenada." ScholarWorks, 2017. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/3660.
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The 2008 financial crisis impacted the Caribbean financial sector with declining liquidity and profitability, and return on assets falling to 0.7% from 2.6%. The purpose of this single case study was to explore strategies that credit union executives in Grenada used to consistently maintain profitability. The targeted study population consisted of four credit union executives responsible for operations, administration, and regulations in the financial service cooperative industry in Grenada. The social influence of power theory was the conceptual framework that grounded this study. The data collection process included semistructured interviews and document (annual reports and cooperative society laws) review. Data analysis involved the thematic approach, using word frequency, coding, and text search to identify underlying themes. Themes that emerged from the study included risk management, investment policies, and the influence of executives decisions' on consistent profitability. Study findings may contribute to positive social change by helping credit union executives maintain profitability, resulting in the potential to benefit local communities by supporting projects that improve the quality of life.
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Giese, Jeremy M. "Rugged field-service computing : a product development case study at Dell Inc." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/90757.
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Thesis: M.B.A., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 2014. In conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT.Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering, 2014. In conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (page 63).
In the face of challenging market conditions, Dell, Inc. is in the process of shifting from focusing on electronics hardware development and sales to focusing on providing complete IT solutions to business clients. Part of this process involves determining what products and services Dell can provide beyond its current offerings, and then developing these new offerings internally or through acquisition. This thesis will use the internal development of one such offering as an in-depth case study to examine an accelerated version of Dell's standard new product development processes. Additionally, it will use the case study to identify pain points in Dell's process and make recommendations to improve this process. The process detailed here resulted in the successful development of a new product concept that Dell may or may not pursue for further development and market introduction. The success of the project is evidence of the robustness of standardized product development processes. The thesis strives to provide a working example of this process in action, and serve as a guide for others who intend to identify new product opportunities and capitalize on them through new product development initiatives.
by Jeremy M. Giese.
M.B.A.
S.M.
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Ruiz, Candace A. "Strategies to Retain Millennial Employees at Full-Service Restaurants." ScholarWorks, 2017. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/3470.
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Some supervisors lack effective strategies to retain millennial generation employees. The purpose of this multicase study was to explore effective strategies supervisors use to retain culinary-educated millennial employees in full-service restaurants. Nine millennials and 3 supervisors from 3 full-service restaurants in Denver, Colorado consented to face-to-face semistructured interviews with open-ended interview questions concerning retention strategies. The conceptual framework of Herzberg's two-factor theory served to guide the scope and the data analysis for the multicase study. The interview transcripts were coded and grouped into themes. Explanation building for the data analysis assisted in finding causal links between cases and the unit of analysis, and in assembling a broad explanation to fit each case. Ten subcategories emerged from the 3 themes that aligned with Herzberg's motivation factors, hygiene factors, and millennial values and attitudes. The 10 subcategories were developed, and indicated that effective strategies differ by supervisor. Among the ten subcategories, the most prominent were (a) growth and advancement, (b) positive working conditions, and (c) quality and influence of the supervisor. This study may contribute to social change by providing restaurant supervisors with strategies for millennial retention and keeping young workers in the community to share in the responsibility of social progress and to reach their full potential.
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Ortman, James Francis. "Strategies to Teach Customer Service Skills." ScholarWorks, 2017. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/3408.
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Business managers' failure to retain dissatisfied customers leads to millions of dollars in lost revenue. The purpose of this single case study was to explore managers' training strategies to teach sales associates customer service skills. The sample included 3 training managers from the mobile phone industry in Michigan who recorded a 25 % increase in customer retention after implementing customer service training. The conceptual framework for this study was human capital theory. Data were collected from semistructured interviews and training documents. Data analysis entailed using coding techniques and cluster analysis. Member checking applied to clarify the interpretation of participants' responses and reveal missing information. The 3 themes that emerged were mentoring and recruitment, training and development, and customer satisfaction. Mentoring and recruitment surfaced from the managers' need to hire qualified sales associates. Training and development grew from the need to have a strategy to train sales associates in customer service skills. Customer satisfaction emerged from the need to retain customers for a stable business environment. The findings from this study may contribute to social change by showing the training strategies managers use to teach customer service skills to sustain business and mitigate harmful effects of job loss. The data suggested a trained sales force could work to retain customers and provide customer satisfaction. Data from this study may contribute to the prosperity of mobile phone customers from well-educated sales associates that enhance the quality of using mobile phones in the local communities. The beneficiaries of this research include business managers, sales associates, and customers.
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Wessels, Steven Allan Jr. "Improving inventory and distribution in an aerospace parts and service organization." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/66042.
Full textAbstract:
Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Engineering Systems Division; in conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 80).
Hamilton Sundstrand has made several changes to their supply chain in recent years, including increased offshore and outsourced production, new service offerings and relocation of facilities, to meet shifting business needs to remain a top competitor in the aerospace systems industry. This thesis reviews the distribution network of their aftermarket parts and service business to ensure that Hamilton Sundstrand meets customer needs through efficient supply chain design and aligning business strategy with inventory planning. A review of the current state is employed to locate gaps in strategic design, operating efficiencies and customer service levels. Improvement opportunities identified in the current state analysis are addressed with proposed alternatives to adjust the distribution network to meet current and future needs while minimizing cost and maintaining or raising service levels. The combined proposals of relocating distribution center volumes, reducing on hand inventory at co-located sites and closing a forward stocking location are estimated to result in over one million dollars in annual cost savings.
by Steven Allan Wessels, Jr.
S.M.
M.B.A.