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Service process design flexibility and customer waiting time

Chwen Sheu (Department of Management, College of Business Administration, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, USA, and)
Roger McHaney (Department of Management, College of Business Administration, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas, USA, )
Sunil Babbar (Department of Information Technology and Operations Management, College of Business, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, USA)

International Journal of Operations & Production Management

ISSN: 0144-3577

Article publication date: 1 August 2003

10727

Abstract

Customer waiting is regarded as one of the most critical aspects of service quality. Research has suggested various approaches to reduce the negative impact of waiting. This article investigates the waiting time performance of alternative service process designs that consist of two operations, order taking and order preparation. The research premise is that no single service process design is the best in all operating conditions. Managers should build flexibility into service process design by using alternative designs in combination. Several break‐even models are developed to examine the contingent nature of the performance of alternative designs. The results point to the need for building flexibility into service process designs by demonstrating that waiting time performance can only be optimized if design strategies are altered in response to ongoing changes in service system input parameters.

Keywords

Citation

Sheu, C., McHaney, R. and Babbar, S. (2003), "Service process design flexibility and customer waiting time", International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 23 No. 8, pp. 901-917. https://doi.org/10.1108/01443570310486347

Publisher

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MCB UP Ltd

Copyright © 2003, MCB UP Limited

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