Service Chain Management

by Voudouris, Christos; Owusu, Gilbert; Dorne, Raphael; Lesaint, David

• ISBN13: 9783540755036
• ISBN10: 3540755039
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-01-31
• Publisher: Springer Verlag

Summary

This book presents the latest innovations and technologies used to manage the operations of a service company. The viewpoints presented are based on the latest research as well as practical experience from BT, one of the largest European service providers.

Author Biography

Christos Voudouris and his co-authors are leading BT's R&D in service and network optimisation. The team was formed in the mid-1990s and worked on developing technologies for the company's pioneering Work Manager system, which by 1998 was saving the company $150 million a year by automating and optimising the processes related to the company's extensive field service operations. Technologies developed by the authors have also been incorporated in two spin-off companies and in software products from BT Global Services and others; they are currently used and benefiting in service companies world-wide. The authors are all recognised authorities in the subject of service optimisation, having won several national and international awards for their work from leading organisations such as INFORMS, the British Computer Society, and The Institution of Engineering and Technology.

Table of Contents

Defining and Understanding Service Chain Management	p. 1
Introduction	p. 1
Book Objectives	p. 2
Challenges in Service Operations	p. 3
Key Success Factors in Services	p. 4
Developing a Blueprint for Service Chain Management	p. 7
Automating Scheduling and Dispatching	p. 7
Movingto Advanced and Systematic Planning	p. 8
FOS: An Example Suite for Integrated Service Chain Management	p. 9
Contrasting with Supply Chain Management	p. 10
The Broader Picture Across Verticals	p. 12
Technologies for Services and Book Structure	p. 13
The Emergence of Digital Services and Chains	p. 14
Summary	p. 17
Customer Service: Emerging Requirements and Trends	p. 19
Introduction	p. 19
Emerging Trends	p. 20
Becoming a Real-Time Enterprise	p. 21
Making Service Personal	p. 22
Exploiting Customer Analytics	p. 23
Engendering Customer and Employee Advocacy	p. 25
Becoming a Knowledge-Driven Service Enterprise	p. 26
Opening-up the Enterprise	p. 27
Summary	p. 28
Resource Planning
Strategic Resource Planning	p. 35
Introduction	p. 35
The Case for Strategic Resource Planning	p. 36
Characterising the Strategic Resource Planning Process	p. 37
Barriers to Implementing an Automated Strategic Resource Planning System	p. 40
Demand Management	p. 40
Supply Management and Planning	p. 42
Variance Analysis, Recommendations and Reports	p. 44
Enablers and Planning Environment	p. 46
A Framework for Implementing an Automated Strategic Planning System	p. 47
Summary	p. 49
Forecasting and Demand Planning	p. 51
Introduction	p. 51
Demand Forecasting and Planning	p. 51
Challenges in Demand Forecasting	p. 53
The Forecasting Process	p. 54
Data Analysis and Interpretation	p. 54
Forecasting Methods	p. 56
Forecasting Measures	p. 60
Understanding Forecasting Impact on Demand Planning	p. 62
Unprecedented Events and Risk Mitigation	p. 63
Summary	p. 64
Tactical Resource Planning and Deployment	p. 65
Introduction	p. 65
Defining Tactical Resource Planning	p. 66
Challenges in Engineering a Tactical Resource Planning System	p. 68
Decision Making in Tactical Resource Planning	p. 68
Automation and Optimisation	p. 70
Visibility and Control	p. 70
Integration in the Service Chain	p. 71
Optimising the Tactical Resource Planning Process	p. 71
Fundamental Decisions	p. 71
Plan Optimisation Techniques	p. 72
A Case Study	p. 74
Summary	p. 76
Network Planning for Telecom and Utilities	p. 79
Introduction	p. 79
The Planning and Design Process	p. 81
Automating Network Design	p. 83
Optimisation of Telecommunication Network Design	p. 84
Network Tiers	p. 87
Network Layers	p. 89
Summarising Network Optimisation	p. 90
Applications of Network Optimisation Within Network Utilities	p. 90
Summary	p. 93
Reservation Management and Resource Scheduling
Reservation Management and Resource CRM	p. 99
Introduction	p. 99
A Brief Overview of the Use of Reservation Management Systems	p. 100
Business and Technical Challenges in Implementing a Reservation Management System	p. 101
Strategies for Implementing a Reservation Management System	p. 102
The Strategic Level	p. 102
The Tactical Level	p. 103
The Operational Level	p. 105
Key Technologies	p. 107
Summary	p. 107
Demand Pricing and Revenue Management	p. 109
Introduction	p. 109
Old Ideas - New Methodologies	p. 110
Revenue Management - Techniques and Technology	p. 111
Basic Principles	p. 111
Revenue Management Systems	p. 114
RM - Theory and Practice	p. 116
Theory Outline	p. 116
Industry Adopters	p. 122
Summary	p. 122
Further Reading	p. 123
Personnel Shift Scheduling and Rostering	p. 125
Introduction	p. 125
General Description	p. 126
Staffing	p. 127
Shift and Roster Design	p. 129
Shift and Roster Allocation	p. 132
The Family of Approaches	p. 134
Solutions to Staffing Problems	p. 134
Solutions to Shift Design and Shift Allocation	p. 135
Summary	p. 137
Work Allocation and Scheduling	p. 139
Introduction	p. 139
Challenges in Work Allocation and Scheduling	p. 140
Data Availability	p. 140
Responsiveness and Flexibility	p. 140
Scale and Complexity	p. 141
A General Description of Work Allocation Problems	p. 142
Main Concepts Found in Work Allocation	p. 143
The Dynamic Nature of the Problem	p. 145
Variants of Work Allocation Problems	p. 146
The Family of Approaches	p. 147
Exact Searches	p. 147
Approximate Searches	p. 148
Implementing Work Allocation and Scheduling	p. 148
Rescheduling and Disruption Management	p. 150
Mobility Support	p. 151
Summary	p. 152
People and Attendance Management	p. 153
Introduction	p. 153
What is People and Attendance Management?	p. 154
People	p. 155
Attendance	p. 155
Absence	p. 156
Maintaining the Mix Between a Fully Automated System and People Involvement	p. 157
Current Practices in People and Attendance Management	p. 157
Analysing the Market Segment for Attendance Management158
Dealing with Attendance in Organisations	p. 158
Implementing People and Attendance Management	p. 159
People Management	p. 159
Attendance Management	p. 160
Absence Management	p. 160
Future Trends	p. 162
Mobility and Office Solutions	p. 162
Shift Bidding	p. 163
Plan-Driven Attendance Management	p. 164
Summary	p. 165
Process, Communications and Information
Flexible Workflows	p. 171
Introduction	p. 171
What is Workflow and Workflow Support?	p. 172
Leavitt's Diamond	p. 172
A Socio-Cognitive Perspective	p. 172
Agents in a Workflow	p. 173
Control Flow	p. 173
Why Are Workflow Support Tools Useful?	p. 173
Previous Approaches	p. 174
Workflow Management Systems	p. 174
Running Workflows	p. 174
Transactional Model	p. 174
Workflow Modelling	p. 175
Summary	p. 175
Contemporary Approaches	p. 176
Why Enterprises Need Service-Oriented Architectures?	p. 176
Workflow Specification Languages	p. 176
Modern Architectural Styles	p. 178
Recovery Mechanisms and Techniques	p. 182
Summary	p. 185
Personalised Communications	p. 187
Introduction	p. 187
Service Delivery Architectures and Platforms	p. 188
UC Services	p. 188
The Principles and Elements of SDPs	p. 190
SIP Technologies	p. 193
An Overview of SIP	p. 193
SIP Deployments	p. 195
SIP Application Creation	p. 196
SIP Application Orchestration	p. 197
Communications Personalisation and Feature-Oriented Engineering	p. 198
Feature-Based Personalisation	p. 199
Feature-Oriented Architectures	p. 200
Summary	p. 202
Predictive Customer Analytics and Real-Time Business Intelligence	p. 205
Introduction	p. 205
Customer Analytics	p. 206
Predicting Customer Events	p. 207
Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty	p. 208
Real-Time Business Intelligence	p. 208
A Consolidated Semantic Data Layer	p. 210
Analytical Performance Frameworks	p. 211
Monitoring Performance	p. 213
Learning Relationships	p. 213
What-If-Scenarios, Target Optimisation and Prediction	p. 214
Summary	p. 214
The Agile Delivery of Service Chain Management Solutions	p. 215
Introduction	p. 215
The Need for Agile Delivery	p. 215
Challenges in Realising Agile Delivery	p. 216
Realising Agile Delivery	p. 217
The Development Strategy	p. 217
The Adaptive Service Development Approach	p. 220
Managing Agile Delivery	p. 223
Summary	p. 223
The Future Service Chain
Collaborative Demand Forecasting in Service Chains	p. 229
Introduction	p. 229
What is Collaborative Forecasting?	p. 229
Challenges in Collaborative Forecasting	p. 230
The Objectives of Collaborative Forecasting	p. 231
The Collaborative Forecasting Framework	p. 232
Learning from Product Supply Chains	p. 235
Summary	p. 237
Business to Business Online Revenue Management	p. 239
Introduction	p. 239
The Impact of Internet and E-Commerce on Service Industries	p. 239
The Logistics Service Chain: An Example Case of B2B E-Commerce Impact	p. 241
Flexible Pricing in E-Commerce	p. 242
Online Auctions	p. 244
Reverse Auctions	p. 244
Quantity Pricing	p. 244
Pricing Matching	p. 245
Group Pricing	p. 245
Trading Exchanges	p. 245
Foundations of Online Revenue Management	p. 246
Models and Algorithms for Online Revenue Management	p. 248
Summary	p. 250
Electronic Marketplaces and Resource Exchanges	p. 251
Introduction	p. 251
Electronic Marketplaces	p. 251
Agents and Marketplaces	p. 252
Partnership Formation	p. 252
Brokering	p. 253
Negotiation	p. 253
Auctions in B2B eCommerce	p. 254
Resource Exchanges for Service Chain Management	p. 255
Business Scenarios for Resource Exchanges	p. 256
Resource Exchange Using a Central Exchange Agent	p. 256
Distributed Agent-Based Resource Exchange	p. 258
A Central Auctioneer-Based Marketplace	p. 259
Technologies for Implementation	p. 260
Summary	p. 261
Multi-Agent Systems for Staff Empowerment	p. 263
Introduction	p. 263
A Workforce Scheduling Problem	p. 264
How to Achieve the Goals?	p. 265
Handling Multiple Objectives	p. 266
How to Generate a Pareto Set of Schedules?	p. 267
Self-Interested Multi-Agent Scheduling	p. 268
RECONNET - Local Search over Schedules	p. 269
Dynamic Scheduling	p. 270
Research Frontier	p. 270
Summary	p. 272
Epilogue
A Practical Guide to Benefit Realisation	p. 275
Introduction	p. 275
What Does Automation Mean?	p. 275
The Scheduler	p. 276
The Mobile Platform	p. 276
Tracking	p. 276
Device Selection	p. 277
Management Information	p. 277
What Does Benefit Achievement Mean?	p. 278
Productivity Gains	p. 278
Customer Service Improvements	p. 279
Faster Invoicing	p. 279
Standardisation	p. 280
The Implementation of a Service Policy and Customer Priorities	p. 280
Better Quality Work	p. 281
A Better Understanding of the Real Performance of the Organisation	p. 281
Understanding Existing Processes	p. 282
Selecting Suppliers and Products	p. 282
Piloting and Implementing	p. 283
Summary	p. 285
Index	p. 303
Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.