Crafting Service Processes: The Art and Science

By Jean Harvey

As the title makes clear, this book is about the design and delivery of service experiences. This includes the design of installations, facilities, technologies and scripts used in the staging of such experiences. It introduces the reader to many fundamental notions in service operations, from positioning to execution, with much attention paid to human experiences such as those of customers and service workers; be they performing simple repetitive tasks or complex mental tasks. The subject is treated in an user-friendly manner with a storytelling context, focusing initially on every day services (coffee shops, fast food, supermarkets) and then moving on to complex services (lawyers, physicians, engineers, accountants).

Contrary to popular hype, not all service experiences are meant to be memorable. If all you need is a cup of coffee and this is done quickly, effortlessly, and painlessly, that's good. If there's a little plus along the way, that's better: you'll make a mental note that this is a good place to stop next time you are in the area.

In an age of exponential technological change, service delivery processes are changing quickly and service industries are being creatively destroyed. You want to be the disruptor, willing to disrupt a large part of your actual income streams. The ability to maintain differentiation rests largely on an in-depth understanding of the service experience and operational excellence. The future belongs to the fastest learner. Intuition is only part of the story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: ASQ Quality Press
• Release date: Mar 28, 2019
• ISBN: 9781953079121

Book preview

I learned from Dr. Harvey not only about how to improve and transform businesses and organizations, but also the people’s life, including mine, in an awesome way.

—Horacio Rodríguez Véliz

Latin America Operations Excellence Leader, Cummins Inc.

Rich examples, exquisite grounded journey in business, Harvey takes you step by step on a passionate odyssey to link humans through a vital tool: service.

—Javier Gomez

Plant Manager, Mexico, Eaton Corporation

Over the years, we’ve had to deal with mixed crowds in our classrooms. Operational excellence specialists from manufacturing and service businesses often learn their trade side by side, glancing at each other warily while their instructor does his best to please everyone and use a healthy mix of real-life examples from both realities. But there comes a point where the tangible and structured flow of a product is more appealing and way easier to work with than what Jean Harvey calls the messy reality" of a complex service request. That fact alone probably explains why books and articles covering the manufacturing implementation of continuous improvement tools outnumber those discussing the same topic for service businesses.

Across the range of complex services, Professor Harvey leads the reader inside system thinking and later critically illustrates complex adaptive systems. A great resource, both for learning about process management in complex services and for refreshing the mind of more expert managers."

—Claudio Kavrecic

Head of the Centre of Excellence for Combatting Document Fraud

European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex

Crafting Service Processes: The Art and Science dares to venture where most instructors and authors would give up. That tipping point when someone will ask how this or that concept can be grounded in a context way more intricate than a coffee shop or a hairdressing salon. Dr. Harvey’s bucket for unique or one-off processes, for which managing for results is more important than repeatability, is intentionally narrow. A lot of use cases that many would consider off-limits are covered in this book and help set the foundations for tackling tomorrow’s challenges. Let’s keep in mind that even the typically reassuring manufacturing processes where the product can be seen and touched are currently being migrated to an industry 4.0 world where algorithms and artificial intelligence will mimic decision trees as broad as those of a complex service request. Just as Dr. Harvey addresses blurry interactions between architects, lawyers, and engineers, process experts in the near future will need to teach man-made objects how to handle every possible situation through machine or deep learning. That’s why this book is even more all-encompassing than at first glance.

—Johanne Maletto

General Manager, Quebec Association for Quality, Canada

A wonderful tool for anyone looking for a way to unleash your company’s innovation and execution potential. The proposed models, concepts, and methodologies presented provide a framework and road map to understanding how value is ­created in an organization. This is a new perspective on the art and science of process improvement and design, rooted in Jean Harvey’s vast experience with various industries around the world.

—Rosario Arias

Executive Director, Starscamp, Lima, Peru

(Innovation and Organizational Transformation Consulting)

After Complex Service Delivery Processes, Jean Harvey simplifies in this book sophisticated notions such as service design and delivery, value proposition, and customer satisfaction using examples from everyday life: family, coffee, food, and finance. I enjoyed reading the book a lot, and its originality.

—Dr. Massoud Toussi

Real World Evidence & Analytics Solutions, IQVIA, Paris, France

Deep knowledge in a friendly lecture . . . this book is an excellent example of the process . . . easy and significant.

—Ulises Limón

Director General, Grupo Limón, México

Crafting Service Processes: The Art and Science

Also available from ASQ Quality Press:

Complex Service Delivery Processes, Third Edition

Jean Harvey

The Joy of Lean

Dodd Starbird

Juran’s Quality Handbook, Seventh Edition

Joseph A. DeFeo

Kaizen Kanban

Fabrice Bouchereau

The Certified Six Sigma Green Belt Handbook, Second Edition

Roderick A. Munro, Govindarajan Ramu, and Daniel J. Zrymiak

The ASQ Six Sigma Black Belt Pocket Guide

T. M. Kubiak

The Certified Six Sigma Black Belt Handbook, Third Edition

T. M. Kubiak and Donald W. Benbow

The Certified Six Sigma Yellow Belt Handbook

Govindarajan Ramu

The Quality Toolbox, Second Edition

Nancy R. Tague

The Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence Handbook, Fourth Edition

Russell T. Westcott, editor

To request a complimentary catalog of ASQ Quality Press publications, call 800-248-1946, or visit our website at http://www.asq.org/quality-press.

Crafting Service Processes: The Art and Science

Jean Harvey

ASQ Quality Press

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

American Society for Quality, Quality Press, Milwaukee 53203

© 2019 by ASQ

All rights reserved. Published 2019

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Harvey, Jean, 1950– author.

Title: Crafting service processes : the art and science / Jean Harvey.

Description: Milwaukee, Wisconsin : ASQ Quality Press, [2019] | Includes

bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019006539 | ISBN 9780873899840 (hard cover : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Service industries—Management. | Organizational

effectiveness.

Classification: LCC HD9980.5 .H3753 2019 | DDC 658—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019006539

ISBN: 978-0-87389-984-0

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Publisher: Seiche Sanders

Sr. Creative Services Specialist: Randall L. Benson

ASQ Mission: The American Society for Quality advances individual, organizational, and community excellence worldwide through learning, quality improvement, and knowledge exchange.

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To place orders or to request ASQ membership information, call 800-248-1946. Visit our website at http://www.asq.org/quality-press.

List of Figures and Tables

Figure 1.1 Ilustrative family service concept for the children.

Figure 1.2 Illustration of various categories of processes in the Carter family: value-adding, enabling, infrastructural, supplier, and societal processes.

Figure 1.3 Connecting processes with the service concept; illustration of some upstream and downstream links for the educate process.

Figure 1.4 Perform daily activities—a time-based process view.

Figure 1.5 Illustration of some connections between processes, service concepts, and standards.

Figure 1.6 Process mission, scope, linkages, and perimeter.

Figure 1.7 Perform early morning activities process in perspective: upstream, downstream, and adjacent processes.

Figure 1.8 Functional and logical breakdown of perform early morning activities process using the functional analysis system technique (FAST) diagram.

Figure 1.9 Simplified (partial) process mapping of a typical early morning start-up at the Carters’, with location of activities.

Table 1.1 A few basic process improvement principles, with their justifications.

Figure 1.10 FAST diagram of perform evening activities process.

Table 1.2 Baby’s activity cycles, needs, and wants.

Table 1.3 Baby’s CTS needs, ranking, and weighting.

Table 1.4 Illustrative list of indicators of the satisfaction of the baby’s and kids’ needs.

Table 1.5 Evening process: four emerging concepts.

Table 1.6 Pugh design matrix: first two iterations.

Table 1.7 Concepts generated in the second iteration.

Table 1.8 A few basic process design principles, with their justifications.

Table 2.1 Service experience: results, pains, gains, and costs. Comparison of two encounters: Alice working, the Carters shopping.

Table 2.2 JCM’s service concept for the office worker segment: benefits and features.

Table 2.3 Summary description of four target market segments.

Table 2.4 Summary description of three target labor market segments.

Table 2.5 JCM’s generic job concept: benefits and features.

Figure 2.1 Human resource process model at JCM.

Figure 2.2 Illustrative operational standards at JCM.

Figure 2.3 Operations process model at JCM, with illustrative standards.

Figure 2.4 Illustration of various categories of processes at JCM: value-adding, enabling, support and infrastructure, and partner processes.

Figure 2.5 Illustration of some connections between processes, service concepts, and standards at JCM.

Figure 2.6 Floor layout of JCM illustrating the path of the customer (X) and the employees’ workstations (A–B–C–D).

Figure 2.7 Process map illustrating the flow of a customer order.

Figure 2.8 Influence diagram showing the variable to be changed (the target variable) in the center, related variables around it, and processes (arrow shapes) in the outer rim.

Figure 2.9 Value to process (V2P) connections.

Table 3.1 First-cut fast-food market segmentation in Hightown: description and distinctive CTSs.

Table 3.2 Competitive landscape in downtown Hightown, comparative analysis of competitors and an eventual Eatsa-inspired restaurant.

Table 3.3 The Eatsa service concept, as translated by Alice. Important production metrics are also shown.

Table 3.4 Illustrative benefits–features matrix for the Eatsa service concept.

Table 3.5 FAST diagram for the prepare order process and idea generation.

Table 3.6 Generic job concept considerations.

Figure 3.1 The work cells process concept.

Figure 3.2 The jumbled flow process concept.

Figure 3.3 The assembly line process concept.

Table 3.7 Pugh matrix for front-end process concept selection.

Table 3.8 Illustrative segmentation of the grocery market in Crestwood.

Table 3.9 Illustrative list of benefits sought and features offered in supermarkets.

Table 3.10 Rough-cut range of benefits sought by various market segments.

Figure 3.4 Grocer’s process: mission, scope, linkages, and perimeter.

Figure 3.5 Matched FAST diagrams for the customer’s buy groceries online process and the grocer’s sell groceries online process.

Table 3.11 High-level view of the customer corridor of a family of four or five members, including two working parents, taken from a weekly perspective.

Table 3.12 Initial idea generation for the sell groceries online subprocesses. Critical subprocesses are highlighted.

Table 3.13 Reduced idea generation diagram, grouping all functionalities into four critical ones.

Table 3.14 Four initial process concepts for online ordering—simplified description.

Table 3.15 Pugh concept selection matrix for home delivery.

Figure 3.6 High-level blueprint of the parking island concept, with some action items for implementation.

Figure 4.1 Illustrative interactions between client system and service system in a knee pain episode.

Figure 4.2 A proposed initial typology of PS (ovals, center) and organizations that employ or regulate them (rectangles, outer ring).

Table 4.1 Indicative list of professions included in the central part of Figure 4.1 and clarification of the organizations that appear in the outer ring of that figure.

Figure 4.3 Mediator case: sequence of events, major actors, trigger events, trigger actions, and escalation triggers.

Table 4.2 Clients, jobs, gains, pains, and illustrative PSSCs in the three cases.

Figure 4.4 The protracted professional service episode: three-way interaction between client system, situation giving rise to PS need, and PSSCs.

Table 4.3 High-level view and perimeter of the three cases discussed in this chapter: start and end point, suppliers, inputs, transformation, outputs, and customers.

Figure 4.5 PSSCs and connections in the health service system accessed by the patient in the skin cancer case.

Figure 4.6 Complex adaptive service delivery system: protracted service episode involving a client system, an emerging situation requiring the intervention of experts, and several PSSCs, with different adjacent service systems.

Table 4.4 Distinctive features of CASs, description, corresponding meaning in CSS, sources, and illustrations.

Figure 5.1 Differences between evolving perceptions, world-view, and preferences among economic agents constantly create opportunities for win–win trade of assets.

Figure 5.2 High-level view of the product development process as an intermediation process between loan capture and investment capture processes.

Figure 5.3 Major types of professionals and organizations primarily involved in the provision of financial services (dark gray), and those playing an ancillary role (light gray).

Figure 5.4 The financial sector portrayed as separate client systems (borrowers and investors), connected by an intermediation system.

Figure 5.5 A complex systems view of the Enron–Andersen events.

Table 5.1 Overview of the service episodes, PSSCs, and systemic effects for the two disaster situations and the two innovations discussed in this chapter, as well as the four additional short examples also briefly discussed.

Figure 5.6 Dotted line bubbles around the new product development model (Figure 5.2) represent the various types of changes discussed in this chapter: origin, nature, and impact.

Table 6.1 A spectrum of processes with examples.

Figure 6.1 Decision tree.

Preface

Service

In the course of their lives, people and organizations regularly need something done for them. They need a result, ranging from the basic, such as obtaining directions or ­having a pair of pants pressed, to the critical, such as having major surgery performed or a liability suit dealt with. As these examples show, frequency, duration, complexity, and regularity vary considerably across the spectrum of human and organizational activities. Providing such a result is performing a service. Being on the receiving end, the client lives a service experience, in which he can be a passive object, such as viewing a show in a theater, or an active participant, such as medicating oneself, and thus partly responsible for the outcome as a coproducer of the result. When one uses facilities, installations, and technology, whether owned, rented, or borrowed, to produce an outcome, we refer to this activity as self-service. Driving your car to work or using a smartphone and GPS with interactive maps to find your way are self-service activities. No face-to-face contact is involved. Rather, you interact with a proxy for the service provider: an artifact, a ­system, a technology, or an installation. As you read this book, you are not interacting with me, but with the book I created. As I am writing it, however, I am clearly focused on the creation of a learning experience. Receiving a massage and massaging yourself using a massaging device are a service and self-service, respectively. While these may be alternate ways to meet the same need, they are clearly different experiences, and the respective supply chains are very different as well.

As the title makes clear, this book is about the design and delivery of service experiences. This includes the design of installations, facilities, technologies, and scripts used in the staging of such experiences, whether or not service providers are directly involved. Contrary to popular hype, not all service experiences are meant to be memorable. If all you need is a quick cup of coffee and this is done quickly, effortlessly, and painlessly, with no unpleasant surprises along the way, that’s good. If there’s a little plus along the way, that’s better: you’ll make a mental note that this is a good place to stop next time you are in the area.

In an age of exponential technological change, service delivery processes are changing quickly, and service industries are being creatively destroyed. You can spend a night in a hotel without ever seeing a service person, create a copy of a document and send it halfway around the world in a few seconds without using a scanner, or have surgery performed by a surgeon located hundreds of kilometers away. The ability to maintain differentiation in such an age rests largely on an in-depth understanding of the nature of the service experience and operational excellence in the flawless creation of such experiences for selected customers.

Companion Book

The purpose of this book is to introduce the reader to basic notions regarding services. It is written for people familiar with the basic concepts and precepts of business management. Experienced managers, business students, and people who have recently assumed managerial responsibilities, or plan to assume them in the near future, will find the content easily accessible. Most professionals and university graduates with a few years of work experience will probably require a bit longer to plow through the material, and some chapters may require more than one reading.

The book can be used as a stand-alone document, as it does not require prior or concurrent reading of any other material. Used as such, the book will make the reader a better service manager, whatever field of endeavor she may be engaged in or may be planning to get involved in. The book clarifies such basic notions as service experience, positioning, service concept, job concept, value proposition, service strategy, operations strategy, service standards, service design, and a host of others (an extensive lexicon is provided at the end of the book).

The book can also be used as a companion to Complex Service Delivery ­Processes (CSDP), third edition. The first edition of CSDP was published in 2007 to fill a void in the literature for professionals and managers involved in the provision of complex ­services, namely engineering, architectural, health, technological, legal, financial, ­scientific, or other industries requiring the services of experts who have been trained to refer to abstract models that guide their professional decisions every day. Over the years, I have learned that many readers find it difficult to jump directly into complex services without a prior understanding of services in general (it is misleading to talk of noncomplex services as simple services, as their management is anything but simple). This book is my response to this difficulty. Most readers intent on gaining a better understanding of complex services should read this book first unless they are already well versed in the management notions it covers.

The videos found on ASQTV at https://tinyurl.com/y4fa8kk4 can also prove very useful. On the latter website you can also find a number of easily accessible podcasts that will provide a user-friendly introduction to the subject matter.

The Carlos and Alice Story, Jean’s Coffee Mug, Fast Food, and Supermarkets

This book focuses on the nature of services and service delivery processes. Using a range of examples that most people can relate to, we bring out the essential nature of ­services and service delivery processes (SDPs). We start with the context of a young family, ­discussing the services that the family provides to its members as well as the external services they use. Since family services are typically not provided commercially, our discussion of such fundamental notions as value, processes, outputs, clients, and outcome is simplified because we do not have to address the profit imperative. This context affords us the opportunity to discuss process change (design and improvement), maintain a light touch on methodological aspects, and explore change management as well.

The stories told in this book center around the Carter family, which is a composite, inspired by real events, hypothetical, and meant to be typical of modern suburban life in many large cities (Chapter 1). From there, as Alice (the mother) visits a Jean’s ­Coffee Mug gourmet coffee shop (which is also a composite, hypothetical, and meant to be typical of independent coffee shops) and decides to provide consulting services to the owner, we explore the various aspects of the coffee shop experience and the associated processes (Chapter 2), building on the notions introduced in Chapter 1 but adding more formalism along the way. We introduce the imperatives associated with profits and competitiveness, and discuss the employee