Page 375 - Design for Six Sigma for Service (Six SIGMA Operational Methods)
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Design and Improvement of Service Processes—Process Management  335

        Service Cost
        Service cost is certainly a measure of process performance. Service cost
        depends on many factors, such as process efficiency and labor cost. A poorly
        designed service process often creates a lot of waste, waiting time, errors,
        and bottlenecks, and it is often one of the most important contributors to
        excessive service cost.

        Resource Utilization
        Resource utilization can be measured by the total time that a particular piece
        of resource is used divided by the total elapsed time. For example, the per-
        centage of a medical doctor’s time in doing value-added work, such as
        taking care of patients, divided by his or her total time spent in the hospital,
        is a measure of resource utilization of this medical doctor. It is desirable that
        all important resources are used at 100 percent. However, uneven resource
        utilization is a very common problem.

        Pure Service Shop Process Analysis

        Typical activities in pure service shop process include
          • Customer arriving
          • Greeting customers
          • Taking customer orders
          • Checking customer order and designing customer service
          • Customer waiting
          • Providing needed services
          • Customer departing
        The resources needed for a service factory process vary greatly depending
        on the nature of the service. For the health-care industry, expensive labs and
        diagnostic equipment; hospital infrastructure; qualified doctors, nurses, and
        staff; and computer information systems are all resources. Good design of
        the service process, equipment maintenance, facility design and layout, and
        training for service providers and support staff are the primary determinants
        of service factory process success.

        The answers to the following questions may be very helpful in designing
        and improving a pure service shop process:

          • Which layout provides the most convenient customer flow and
            minimizes delays?
          • What is the peak capacity of the system?
          • Which resources can be shared in peak times to minimize waiting time?
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