Service Operations Management

How do you define the service concept and set appropriate operational priorities and objectives for your business? We will consider how this concept can be operationalised to create service excellence, by closing the gaps between customer expectations and perceptions of service.

We will cover:

• How to define service operations and processes, and the performance objectives, in the light of competitive strategies
• Understanding the managerial challenges which are associated with different types of service process
• Defining the service concept, and learn how to create one for your business
• How to close the gaps between customer expectations and perceptions of service, with a view to achieving service excellence. 

Getting service design right is critical to the success of any service. This means considering every aspect of the service environment that is shared by customers and front-liners: the 'servicescape'. In this module we consider how service design is likely to differ between service process types, and how the service design process itself should be managed. 

We will cover:

• Servicescapes and their importance
• Classifying service layout types and flow
• Demonstrating service blueprinting and applying it to your business
• How to appraise commonly used techniques for New Service Development (NSD).

Does your service operation have the ability to deliver its service outcomes effectively, on time and to the required quality standard? Your customers have needs, and to fulfill all customers is impossible as capacity can never truly match demand. We will explore demand and capacity can never truly match demand. We will explore demand and capacity management in services. 

We will cover:

• Identifying the nature of demand and capacity in services
• Applying demand forecasting techniques to services
• Contrasting different approaches for service capacity planning
• Understanding different approaches to managing queues
• Approaches to and implementation of flexible working.

The term improvement simply means 'close the gap between the current and desired performance of a process.' This module will provide methodology for service improvement, focussing on the definition of key targets, measuring current performance indicators, analysing problems with the status quo, and multiple approaches and tolls to inform radical or incremental changes. 

We will cover:

• How to define key measures of service performance
• How to set service targets
• The application of a suite of process improvement tools and techniques
• Implementing a variety of organisational improvement programmes including Lean, Total Quality Management, Business Process Reengineering and Six Sigma.