Service Management Course

Introduction

This comprehensive course covers today's most effective theories and methods for managing service organizations, drawing on innovative insights from economics, consumer behavior, marketing, strategy, and operations management. This course is invaluable resource for senior and mid-level managers throughout any service organization, and for students and faculty in any graduate or upper-level undergraduate program in service management, service operations management, or operations management.

On completion of this course you should be able to: 

• Tie customer-driven strategies to service operations and process management
• Sharpen their focus on creating customer value throughout your entire service organization
• Gain crucial insights into emerging service operation and supply chain topics
• Reinforce the key points with up-to-date case studies. 
• Understand and discuss linear and goal programming and its services applications
• Discuss Service SCM methods and approaches, and Identify Ethical challenges to SCM
• Gain knowledge of Service productivity, Vehicle routing and scheduling

Course Outline

Module 1:  Understanding Services

THE IMPORTANT ROLE SERVICES PLAY IN AN ECONOMY

• What Are Services?
• The Service Sector of the U.S. Economy
• Theories Explaining the Growth of Services
• Overview of the course

THE NATURE OF SERVICES AND SERVICE ENCOUNTERS

• General Concept of a Productive System
• Characteristics of Services
• The Service Organization as a System
• Service Encounters

CUSTOMERS: THE FOCUS OF SERVICE MANAGEMENT

• Customers and Their Needs
• Consumer Behavior and a Consumer Decision Model
• Unique Aspects of Service Purchases
• A Cultural Profile of American Customers
• A Look into the Future

GLOBALIZATION OF SERVICES

• International Trade in Services
• Why Service Companies Go Global
• Global Environment for Service Businesses
• Forms of Globalization

SERVICE STRATEGY AND COMPETITIVENESS

• Value
• Strategy
• Formulating a Competitive Service Strategy

ETHICAL CHALLENGES IN SERVICE MANAGEMENT

• What Is Ethics?
• Is There an Ethics Problem in Private and Public Sectors?
• Challenges for Service Employees and Managers
• Philosophical Theories of Ethics
• Guidelines for Ethical Business Behavior

Module 2:  Building the Service System

TECHNOLOGY AND ITS IMPACT ON SERVICES AND THEIR MANAGEMENT

• Process Technology and Information Technology
• Technology in Services
• Why Service Companies Invest in Technology
• Technology as a Competitive Edge
• Application Areas of Technology in Services
• Information Systems
• Enterprise Systems
• Technology and the Future of Services

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF SERVICES AND SERVICE DELIVERY SYSTEMS

• Why the Design Is So Important
• Designing Quality and Value
• Principles of Service Design
• Design Process

SUPPLY CHAINS IN SERVICES AND THEIR MANAGEMENT

• Developments Leading to the Emergence of Supply Chain Management
• What Is a Supply Chain?
• Supply Chains in Services and Their Characteristics
• Some Other Characteristics of Service Supply Chains
• Challenges for Service Supply Chain Managers

LOCATING FACILITIES AND DESIGNING THEIR LAYOUT

• Location Selection
• Quantitative Methods for Location Selection
• Site Selection
• Objectives of Facility Layout
• Inputs to the Layout Problem
• Layout Strategies
• Office Layout
• Retail Store Layout
• Warehousing and Storage Layouts

Module 3:  Operating the Service System

 MANAGING DEMAND AND SUPPLY IN SERVICES

• Why Matching Demand and Supply Is Such a Challenge in Services
• Managing Demand
• Managing Supply

SUPPLEMENT QUEUING AND SIMULATION

• Basic Queuing System Configurations
• Measuring the Queue's Performance
• A Single-Channel Queuing Model
• A Multichannel Queuing Model
• More Complex Queuing Models and the Use of Simulation
• Simulation as a Scheduling Tool
• The Role of Computers in Simulation

SERVICE QUALITY AND CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT

• Why Quality Is So Important
• Quality Defined
• Dimensions of Service Quality
• The Gaps Model of Service Quality
• Achieving Quality
• Other Approaches to Achieving Service Quality
• Reinforcing Quality Service

SUPPLEMENT TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES OF TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

• Plan-Do-Study-Act Cycle
• Tools of TQM
• Process Control Charts

SERVICE PRODUCTIVITY AND MEASUREMENT OF PERFORMANCE

• A Brief Background on Productivity
• Why Productivity Is Important
• Review of the Slowdown of U.S. Productivity Growth in the Recent Past
• Raising Productivity
• Service Productivity
• Data Envelopment Analysis for Measurement of Service Efficiency

MANAGEMENT OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE NONPROFIT SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS

• Public and Private Nonprofit Organizations Defined
• Significance of Public and Private Nonprofit Organizations
• The Nature of Public Sector Organizations
• The Nature of Private Nonprofit Organizations

Module 4: Tools and Techniques for Managing Service Operations

 FORECASTING DEMAND FOR SERVICES

• The Demand Forecast as the Basis for Operations Planning
• What Types of Service Outputs Are Forecast?
• Factors That Affect the Choice of Forecasting Method
• Time Series Forecasting Models
• Causal (Associative) Forecasting; Regression Analysis
• General Approaches to Forecasting

VEHICLE ROUTING AND SCHEDULING

• Objectives of Routing and Scheduling Problems
• Characteristics of Routing and Scheduling Problems
• Routing Service Vehicles
• Scheduling Service Vehicles
• Other Routing and Scheduling Problems

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

• Project Planning
• Project Scheduling
• Project Controlling
• Project Management Techniques; PERT and CPM
• PERT/Cost
• Other Service Applications of PERT
• A Critique of PERT and CPM

 LINEAR AND GOAL PROGRAMMING APPLICATIONS FOR SERVICES

• Overview of Linear Programming
• Graphical Solution to a Linear Programming Problem
• Computer Solution to a Linear Programming Problem
• Formulating Linear Programming Models
• Goal Programming

SERVICE INVENTORY SYSTEMS

• Characteristics of Service Inventories
• The Input Material Decision Problem
• Service Inventory Control Systems
• Inventory Control Systems for Independent Demand Items
• Inventory Planning
• Requirements Planning for Dependent Demand