Service Operations and Their Manufacturing Counterparts: An Assessment of Difficulties in Planning

Every company will focus on supplying a service, product, or both. How and where the product is made plays a crucial role in the company’s success. In order to help visualize how the products are made process maps are formatted. These process maps can help to identify areas that need improvement. In order to implement improvement, process development will be implemented. The form of good that a company supplies is also important and to ensure that the best product is distributed product development is conducted. Target Corporation is a complex company, which provides consumers with their necessities.

Goods and services are both areas of operations, this means that they will change the state of any input into output. In order to achieve this they will need to have a transformation process according to the type of service or goods they have to offer this is all part of satisfying customer needs.

The Customer relationship, Order fulfillment, and Supplier relationship processes need to be analyzed from the perspective of process structure, process improvement, layout, and capacity.

Service improvement is arguably one of the most important challenges facing the National Health Service (NHS) today, as both patients and service users search for a ‘good quality’ service, and expect services to be both efficient and effectual. All staff within the health service need to be educated and competent in their roles, in order to be able to offer a service that is beneficial to the patients that make use of it.

Management 460 is a case studies course in the management of manufacturing and service processes and operations. The course addresses manufacturing and service process selection and analysis, forecasting, capacity planning, aggregate

This course focuses on services management in general and service operations in particular. It explores the elements that unite services, that differentiate service processes from non-service processes and that differentiate various types of services from each other. Customers generally participate in the service process, often with direct and uncensored interactions with employees and facilities. The resulting

In recent years, the requirements of commercial and industrial operations in the production of services and goods have been subject to vast changes. In the present era of globalization and increasing international competition, a trend away from vertically integrated organizations has become more and more evident. In fact, most companies nowadays tend to solely concentrate on their own core competencies, outsourcing different steps of the production. However, including a great many of other organizational units to the production systems, has lead to rising complexity in terms of the operations management (Plenert, 2012).

Tangible goods, or rather manufactured goods, have been the dominant medium of exchange for centuries. However, recent decades have proved that it is no longer the case as there has been a prevalence of being service oriented (Vargo and Lusch, 2004:1-2). Services, as defined by Vargo and Lusch (2004), are  “the application of specialized competences (knowledge and skills) through deeds, processes, and performances for the benefit of another entity or the entity itself (p.2).” Utilizing services gives businesses an edge, a competitive advantage, particularly in an evolving competitive market, something which Metalfrio is definitely part of (Vargo and Lusch, 2004:9).  Those businesses that learn to adapt tend to do well. In addition, Vargo and Lusch (2004) write this shift to services is also a shift from producer perspective to a customer perspective (p.2). Thus, it leads to more of a collaborative effort where co-creation leads to adding value to the service rather than a product having value (Vargo and Lusch, 2004:6). Also, customers rather develop relationships with those that can provide a range of related services over an extended period of time, thus allowing businesses retain their clients for the long term (Vargo and Lusch, 2004:13). Overall, service oriented marketing is a direction that businesses should be headed towards to ensure that they can remain relevant and competitive in the

Within this case study, many individuals can be referred to as stakeholders. The individuals residing in the two states where the plants are located may be affected by any changes that occur within their geographic area. In addition, federal, state, and local government agencies are responsible for the enforcement of laws that the business may be required to abide by.

M&L Manufacturing makes various components for printers and copiers. The company supplies these items to a major manufacturer. The company also distributes these and similar items to office supply stores and computer stores as replacement parts for printers and desktop copiers. In all, the company manufactures about 20 different items to distribute. The two markets (the major manufacturer and the replacement market) require somewhat different handling. Product for the major manufacturer can be shipped in bulk. However, the products for the retail segment must be packaged individually which requires additional handling and expense. Instead of using forecasting for production planning the operations manager decides which

The organization in this study, a multi-billion dollar warehousing and distribution company, has been housed in an old building and will be moved to a new state-of-the-art facility. This move involves the planning, organizing, staging and moving of products from one location to the other. Included in planning needs are signage, warehouse racking placement, warehouseman selector choosing routes, freezer, cooler and dry product placement. Incorporated into this move will be the necessity to deal with contractors who are completing the building as well as contacting all vendors and suppliers to inform them of the change of location and service changes during the two-day transition period. The actual moving of all products will require 16 hours, 30 employees on two shifts at two different locations.

As director of Supply Chain Systems, Teri Takai recommends implementing virtual integration strategies from companies like Dell to portions of Ford’s supply chain strategy. Although there are several key differences between the companies, the restructuring plans of Ford 2000 have set a viable foundation to implement Dell’s virtual integration strategy in inventory management, customer service and support and suppliers’ management. The redesign of the process must include design not only of the supply chain but also of fulfillment, forecasting, purchasing, and a variety of other functions that historically been considered independently within the Ford hierarchy. Teri

The lean principles can be applied to service operations, as service operations are “organized systems of production processes” with the same potential for improvement through implementation of lean precepts as manufacturing operations (Benson, 1986 in Duclos et al., 1995). Manufacturing employ processes that add value to the inputs used in creating final products, which is in a way similar to services (Canel et al., 2000). Silvestro et al. (1993) classified service processes into three major headings of professional, service shop and mass. These three majors headings are further classified into six different dimensions of equipment/people focus as the main element of the service delivery is provided by equipment or people; customer contact time per transaction; the

1 The tourism school, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, China; 2School of Business Administration, Zhejiang Gongshang University, Hangzhou, China. Email: chenjue8@yahoo.com

The major differences between goods and services in operations management are their goods, inventory, customers, labor and location. One major difference in the tangibility of their output. For example, a service firm would entail consultancy, training or maintenance, this is an intangible product. These services are not tangible object, but still provide a “product” for the customer. A good would be a tangible for the consumer. A company manufactures a certain product and the consumer is able to physically receive it. For example, A manufacturer such as Coke, Nestle, Honda and BMW. Another difference between a service and goods is their inventory. Service forms do not hold inventory, they provide a service when their customers ' need it. Manufacturers produce goods which creates an inventory. Inventory levels are created through supply and demand. A lot of companies only have a certain level of inventory in order to utilize their “space”. In addition a major difference between goods and services is their customer relationship. There is a high customer contact in the service industry. The service industry caters to their clients; meaning they adjust their service to the needs of the customer. For example, a consulting firm may only need to do four hours of work with a certain customer and twelve hours with another. In manufacturing goods there is low customer contact. Manufactures can produce their customers goods without having them submit an order, because they can