An approach to the representation of service process design

Process thinking has been recognized as a major approach to operations management. In many industries, organizations are realizing that the effectiveness and efficiency of operations are highly dependent on the quality of their operational processes. Process thinking in service operations management requires that service processes be well designed and documented, and accordingly be implemented. The design of service process becomes very important to the overall success of an organization in the marketplace, particularly in dealing with dynamic and rapid changes in the business environment. Regarding service process design, representation is an important and basic issue that should be addressed. The blueprint of a service process is crucial for documentation, validation and communication among different functional parties involved in the service process design and operation management. This thesis research aims at developing an approach to the design representation of service processes. To achieve this goal, a normative frame of reference for service process design and representation is first described. In the framework, the aspects of a service process are systematically explained from the points of view of importance to service process design and representation. We assert that each aspect of a service process requires special treatment in service process design. The framework maintains that a service process is a goal-achieving system where customer participation is treated as an integral part and that service process design and representation should include not only 1) the aspects of employees' work but also 2) customer participation and 3) the process output - a service. Customer participation is of particular value, because the service operations, differing from manufacturing systems that focus on employees' work, involve the customer service experiences. This research establishes a theoretical framework for service process design and representation by which a systematic service process can be understood and designed, as well as a design representation language comprising syntax and semantics can be developed. It has been accepted that well-defined syntax and semantics are critical in the representation of real world with consistent form and understanding in meaning for a certain purpose. For service process design, we develop a representation language of well-defined syntax and semantics that can produce a visual diagrammatic representation of a service process design. Such a development takes into consideration the requirements on representation language, the proposed conceptual framework, object-oriented modeling methodology, and the existent process modeling methods. This language provides the common constructs that collectively form the essential basis of a service process representation. To illustrate how the proposed language works, an example of a canteen service process design is presented, showing that the language facilitates an integrated design representation of a service process. The proposed representation language has the following features: design guide for service process, well-defined syntax and semantics, diagram-based representation, integrated representation of multiple perspectives, and the adoption of object-oriented modeling methodology. Notwithstanding the design representation of a service process cannot guarantee that service operations will be successful and a service will be excellent, clarity in representation is necessary for organizations to achieve good operations performance