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Inventory service levels are a concern of every inventory system. Poor service levels may result in loss of customers and sales, whereas excessive service levels result in loss of money due to large inventories. Although inventory service levels have been discussed widely in the professional literature, the emphasis has been on service levels during replenishment lead times. Overall service levels, which are much more relevant to customers, have received little attention, and the results presented are often mistaken. This article reviews measures of inventory service levels both for single and multiple items, relates single item measures during lead times to their overall counterparts, and shows that overall measures are not only more relevant to customers, but also require lower safety stock from the provider of the goods.

Service level agreements provide a mechanism for establishing a better relationship between the core business and the infrastructure and services that support it. It provides a statement of various service level options from which a number can be selected to support the customer or client, which describes the service to be given specific timing, frequency and cost. It enables decisions to be taken at a strategic level as to how these can be matched to achieve business profitability. The process is a continuing one and requires commitment at the highest level, to ensure not only that it is adopted properly, but that the services defined are properly and effectively delivered. Describes the various steps in the process and in broad terms how it can be implemented.

The aim of this study is to evaluate the quality of services provided by the Regional Information Center for Science and Technology (RICeST) employing the Six Sigma methodology.

The studied population in this research consists of the users of RICeST. To start with, 120 users of RICeST have been chosen as the samples in a simple random way. Next, in order to collect the data, the LibQUAL+ Questionnaire has been used. Having applied this questionnaire, the gap between the customers' expectations and perceptions has been identified and analyzed. Moreover, the given data are analyzed and their mean and standard deviations are calculated by “SPSS”. Then, in each of the evaluated cases, the calculated standard deviation is compared with the sigma level in the output table in order to specify the qualitative efficiency of services. Accordingly, the error rate in each of the provided services has been determined.

Findings revealed that staff at RICeST could meet the users' minimum expectations of this center in all cases except for the option “the courteous staff”; therefore, they have allocated the efficiency of 50 percent which is equal to 500,000 errors per million. In other words, the average rate seems to be true in all options about the staff in this center. The efficiency of 69.20 percent obtained from the users' view about the quality of existing resources of this center, represents their relative satisfaction with the information resources in RICeST. But it is just in the option “the presence of a web site in the center” that the level of users' expectations is equal to the actual level and the achieved efficiency of 99.97 percent. Finally, it has been found that the quality of library space at the actual level was lower than the maximum level of users' expectation, but higher than the level of users' minimum expectations. The efficiency of 69.20 percent about the physical space of RICeSt indicates 308,000 errors per million. Consequently, it is far from achieving the desired level or the maximum users' expectations.

The increasing expectations of users in libraries and information centers have caused that these types of centers need modern strategies and management techniques in order to comply with these increasing changes and requirements. Evaluating the service quality in the library means to assess the effectiveness of services provided. The effect of evaluating the service quality is not limited to this fact, in which the services are provided only for users, but it is also focusing on the users' application level and compliance with their information needs and satisfaction of the quantity and quality of services.

This paper aims to urge the new culture of assessment of the quality of library services among Iran academic libraries and to assess the overall services quality of libraries from the users' perspectives based on the LibQUAL model.

In this survey researchers used the LibQUAL model to assess service quality in the central libraries in engineering and technical governmental universities in Tehran city. For gathering data of libraries users, researchers used the LibQUAL questionnaire in a non‐electronic format and translated into Farsi.

It was found that library users were dissatisfied with their library building. But these libraries performed very well in the information control dimension. Furthermore, the examination of users' expectations showed that the proposition “Employees who are consistently courteous” was most important, and “Employees who instill confidence in users” had less importance.

Using the LibQUAL Survey has helped the university libraries in Iran to better serve their main user groups, and for the first time researchers used the non‐electronic format of LibQUAL questionnaire in the survey.

A survey was conducted using conjoint analysis to determine how consumers perceived the relative importance of price vs. quality of service in the selection of restaurants. The use of conjoint analysis enables one to mimic the trade‐off situation in a consumer’s choice process. The results showed that price was a more important factor than quality of service. Estimates are also made regarding how much more respondents are willing to pay for a higher level of service.

The article addresses the optimization of safety stock service levels for parts in a repair kit. The work was undertaken to assist a public transit entity that stores thousands of parts used to repair equipment acquired over many decades. Demand is intermittent, procurement lead times are long, and the total inventory investment is significant.

Demand exists for repair kits, and a repair cannot start until all required parts are available. The cost model includes holding cost to carry the part being modeled as well as shortage cost that consists of the holding cost to carry all other repair kit parts for the duration of the part’s lead time. The model combines deterministic and stochastic approaches by assuming a fixed ordering cycle with Poisson demand.

The results show that optimal service levels vary as a function of repair demand rate, part lead time, and cost of the part as a percentage of the total part cost for the repair kit. Optimal service levels are higher for inexpensive parts and lower for expensive parts, although the precise levels are impacted by repair demand and part lead time.

The proposed model can impact society by improving the operational performance and efficiency of public transit systems, by ensuring that home repair technicians will be prepared for repair tasks, and by reducing the environmental impact of electronic waste consistent with the right-to-repair movement.

The optimization model is unique because (1) it quantifies shortage cost as the cost of unnecessary holding other parts in the repair kit during the shortage time, and (2) it determines a unique service level for each part in a repair kit bases on its lead time, its unit cost, and the total cost of all parts in the repair kit. Results will be counter-intuitive for many inventory managers who would assume that more critical parts should have higher service levels.

In this chapter, we summarize and build on the current state of the customer mistreatment literature in an effort to further future research on this topic. First, we detail the four primary conceptualizations of customer mistreatment. Second, we present a multilevel model of customer mistreatment, which distinguishes between the unfolding processes at the individual employee level and the service encounter level. In particular, we consider the antecedents and outcomes unique to each level of analysis as well as mediators and moderators. Finally, we discuss important methodological concerns and recommendations for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a framework to help the manufacturer and the giant retailer to obtain optimal service level, pricing strategy, and market structure in order to maximize their respective profits.

A profit‐maximization model is developed to determine the optimal service level, pricing strategy, and market structure for supply chain players.

Using a profit‐maximization model, it is demonstrated that optimal service level and pricing strategy exist under different market structures in a manufacturer‐giant retailer supply chain. In order to maximize their respective profits, the manufacturer and the giant retailer should cooperatively employ a coordinative market structure as an optimal market structure and a bargaining model can be utilized to implement profit sharing for the manufacturer and giant retailer to optimize their profits. Furthermore, it is also shown that the value of coordinative structure always increases with the customers' sensitivity of service, the number of customers preferring to purchase from giant retailer, and the decreasing price sensitivity.

The study assumes that all supply chain players have perfect market information. However, market information to the supply chain players could be incomplete and asymmetric. It is recommended that future research explores optimal service level and pricing strategy under incomplete and asymmetric information setting.

The paper provides a very useful model framework to study optimum service level, pricing strategy, and market structure for business managers who are working in the manufacturer‐giant retailer supply chain.

The paper fills a conceptual and practical gap for a structured analysis of the current state of knowledge about service level, pricing strategy, and market structures in a manufacturer‐giant retailer supply chain. The paper provides practical, solid advice and business examples that demonstrate the application of the optimal strategies for supply chain management.

The purpose of this paper is to measure service quality in a national library from users’ views, based on gap analysis model by using the LibQUAL+™ tools.

The study was done using a LibQUAL+™ survey. In this research, service quality has survived in three dimensions: Affect of Service, Information Control, and Library as Place in three levels – “minimum”, “perceived levels of services” and “desired level”. Statistical population of this research included all users (female and male) who use different parts of the National Library of Iran (NLAI) in the year 2010. Due to the high volume of population and time & budget restrictions, 332 people formed the sample size.

Findings showed that from users’ views, librarians could not meet minimum users’ expectations except in some cases. Library resource quality in perceived level of service is less than their expectations minimum. In other words, library resources could not meet minimum expectation and there are more gaps until desired level. Library as Place dimension has more quality than the two other dimensions, but NLAI place quality in perceived level is less than users’ expectation minimum. Of course there is a little gap with perceived level in this dimension.

The similarity in some results of LibQUAL+™ in academic libraries and national library implies that perhaps LibQUAL+™ tool is applicable for measuring library services in different type of libraries.

Using the LibQUAL+™ Survey has helped the national library in Iran to better serve its main user groups and showed that the translated and domesticated version of LibQUAL+™ can be reliably implemented in different type of libraries.