Moving Forward the Limits for Service Operations Optimization

Many authors have contributed to Service Strategy and to Service Management literature, but much less has been done in the field of Service Operation Management, and this can be confirmed by noticing how many service organizations still are not able to optimize their operations without sacrificing customer satisfaction and vice versa. We have identified some critical issues in literature that can explain this: the common use of classifying services as something homogeneous and not realizing the importance of splitting service processes into elements and analyzing each of these; identifying permeability with level of customer contact; thinking that permeability means variability and therefore is dichotomous with operation management optimization; not distinguishing between customization and personalization and not considering modern flexible/agile operation management approaches/algorithms. We hereafter propose an approach to face these issues and solve them methodologically. Finally we will show how what we are proposing has been able to sensibly improve performances in a case study.