Managing Service Operations: Design and Implementation

Citation

Maytorena, E. (2007), "Managing Service Operations: Design and Implementation", International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 27 No. 6, pp. 650-651. https://doi.org/10.1108/01443570710750303

The service sector is an important contributor to western economies and is increasingly becoming an area of interest in management education. This book looks at service operations management throughout its lifecycle – from conception to disposal by bringing together three key areas: operations management; design management; and marketing.

The book has a clear and coherent structure which is divided into four parts, 15 chapters, glossary, index and references. Part 1 sets the context by providing an overview of services, strategy and people and is divided into three chapters. Chapter 1 provides an overview of services management, describes the growth in service management, defines what a service is, makes the distinction between service and manufacturing, and concludes by stating the importance of services. Chapter 2 looks at service operations strategy. It discusses the nature of competitive advantage and helps identify the components of a business strategy. It does this by providing a brief historical overview of strategy, an understanding of the role of strategy in meeting the customer's needs, and presents well‐known frameworks for the management of operations. Chapter 3 focuses on the importance of the people side of services management, covering issues of trust, communication, roles and responsibility, motivation, empowerment and leadership. Part 2, more expansive at five chapters, focuses on the development of services and is supported by the authors' own research. The product and service design process introduces the reader to how to manage the design process and highlights results of the authors' research which indicate poor service design management. Identification of customer needs focuses on market research, while design specifications and controlling mechanisms explains how to develop specifications and understand the link between marketing and specifications. The next two chapters, Creativity and innovation, and Learning from product and service failures, concern identifying and developing new concepts, and identifying the causes and mitigating potential failures during the design process. Part 3 discusses the management of service operations and is divided into six chapters. Service quality management provides a brief overview of quality, quality control and assurance, describes the application of TQM and Six Sigma in businesses to improve services. Global supply chain management focuses on the importance of supply chain management to reducing organisational costs, while Services location and distribution discusses issues of location strategy and provides an overview of methods for making decisions about the location for operations. Managing capacity and variations in demand provides an overview of capacity and outlines capacity management strategies. Evaluation and performance measurement covers performance measurement issues, key performance measures, and the role of benchmarking, and thinking about and managing for the future discusses planning and managing for the long term, and proposes whole life design as a way of adding value. It also describes some techniques on how to manage services in the future. Finally, Part 4 contains a comprehensive case study in which concepts covered in the book are brought together at a practical level. Each chapter is clearly written and well supported. Each states the learning objectives at the beginning and provides a summary of key issues, student activities and additional reading at the end. In addition, chapters are supported by useful case studies.

Accessibly written, this book will be of interest to practitioners involved in the service sector, academics teaching in this area and undergraduate and postgraduate management students studying service operations management, as well as those studying general operations management. Recommended.