Service Management Issues Research Articles

Unpacking Service Management Issues in Intermediate Public Transportation Toward Sustainable Mobility

How can intermediate public transportation (IPT) benefit from a service management emphasis to envision the sustainable mobility of the future? Answering this question, this paper reviews IPT, which includes modes such as the Access Link and Kutsuplus schemes, auto-rickshaws, and e-bike taxis. These modes represent new mobility services that have emerged in both developed and developing countries in the wake of evolving travel demands, soaring private vehicle ownership, and declining public transit ridership. Despite the emerging nature of IPT, however, it remains underrepresented and poorly understood in transportation frameworks, and so is generally excluded from transportation reforms. With this premise, this review accentuates how IPT services can be improved and made more attractive to users by mainstreaming service management issues. Further, this review outlines how improvement of IPT can help in unlocking the sustainable mobility of the future. This research therefore stems from a multidisciplinary review set involving scholarship in engineering management, operations management, operations research, transportation engineering, and transportation management. The paper outlines diverse facets of service management from which IPT can benefit. Furthermore, the paper theorizes on how IPT can contribute to sustainable mobility.

MANAJEMEN PELAYANAN PENDAFTARAN HAJI PADA KANTOR KEMENTERIAN AGAMA KABUPATEN MANGGARAI TIMUR-NTT

this article investigates the Hajj registration service at the Office of the Ministry of Religion of East Manggarai Regency. In this study, the discussion will focus on service management issues and the supporting and inhibiting factors. This article is the result of field research using a qualitative approach. The data in this article were obtained through interviews, observation and documentation. Some of the important questions in this article are, what kind and how is the management of the Hajj registration service at the office of the Ministry of Religion in Kab. East Manggarai?, and secondly, what are the supporting and inhibiting factors for Hajj services at the office of the Ministry of Religion, Kab. East Manggarai? The results of this study indicate that the management of the Hajj registration service at the Office of the Ministry of Religion of East Manggarai Regency is that pilgrims must first open an account book, make a payment of 25 million rupiah for BPIH (Hajj Organizer), fill out the SPPH (Hajj Registration Letter form), and finally register with SISKOHAT (Integrated Hajj Computerized System). Meanwhile, the supporting and inhibiting factors in serving Hajj registration, namely the registration procedure assisted by management staff. And the inhibiting factor is the lack of technological knowledge that makes online registration difficult.

Managing Internet of Things based traffic using Software Defined Networking

The current internet architecture cannot manage the massive data volumes produced by the smart IoT-based healthcare systems. Very recently, the idea of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) has surfaced to resolve the issues related to networking. The incorporation of SDN technology in IoT-based healthcare systems can possibly solve the existing quality of service and data management issues. Furthermore, the IoT-based healthcare system can attain enhanced Quality of Service (QoS) through the employment of such schemes that use shortest-path routing algorithms and offer higher bandwidth to lesser delay paths as per the QoS requirements. In this study, the SDN technology is integrated with IoT-based healthcare systems, and the delay is reduced for delay-sensitive applications by using the Bellman-Ford algorithm. The proposed scheme is deployed using the POX controller and can effectively handle the existing QoS issues in the IoT healthcare systems. The simulation results of the proposed scheme show a clear drop in delay values in comparison to the benchmark scheme.

Service Management for IoT: Requirements, Taxonomy, Recent Advances and Open Research Challenges

The exponential growth in the number of smart devices connected to the Internet of Things (IoT), and associated with various IoT-based smart applications and services, raises interoperability challenges which could affect the sustainability of IoT services. IoT software applications are built using different software platforms and embedded in diverse types of terminals and sensing devices. Aiming to offer smart services over a range of network technologies that use different communication protocols. The concept of Web service with service-oriented solutions was introduced to cope with the heterogeneity of hardware and software, and to tackle issues of interoperability, flexibility and scalability. The main step of this solution was the integration of Web of Things technologies into smart device networks, with the utilization of IoT gateways. Service management is a crucial factor in sustaining service-oriented solutions in dynamic and highly scalable IoT systems, and is concerned with several issues associated with service provisioning, orchestration, composition and adaption. This work was motivated by the need for robust and flexible service management systems that can meet the requirements for the rapid scalability and heterogeneity associated with the exponential growth of IoT systems. In the literature there is no survey of service management issues and associated research efforts in the field of IoT. In this article, we identify the key requirements for managing IoT services as well as common service management platforms for IoT. We provide a thematic taxonomy based on the important factors, and investigate recent advances in service management for IoT systems. Finally, the major challenges that remain open are presented as a guide for future research directions.

Una metodologia analitica applicata alla razionalizzazione dei servizi urbani in aree pedemontane Ottimizzazione dei servizi primari nel Comune di Tivoli

One of the main debate topics between citizens and people who manage public property is urban quality of life. The project aims to evaluate the spatial distribution of basic primary services (such as pharmacies, doctors' offices and shops that sell all the basic necessities) concerning people with reduced mobility, in order to provide cognitive tools in support of a land-use planning (managed by local authorities), which meets the needs of the resident population. We decided to consider the village of Tivoli. The city shows some service management issues, mainly due to the presence of two portions with reduced intermobility. As regards the analysis of population, starting from the sections of ISTAT data, we evaluated the distribution of the population characterized by reduced mobility in the different parts, related to the onset of chronic diseases in age groups above 60 years. This study aims to suggest local authorities to optimize the redistribution of the above-written services and to improve the accessibility for people with reduced mobility.

What needs re-thinking in services management in the dawning age of Asian travellers?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to draw upon the various articles in this theme issue and identify the key services management principles that merit re-thinking in the face of the growing and enduring trend of Asian travellers. Design/methodology/approach – As a conclusion, this paper reviews the findings of the articles in this theme issue collection and synthesizes them thematically as well as strategically for both scholars and practitioners of services management and marketing. Findings – There are five key assumptions that need re-thinking if services management organizations are to adequately meet the challenges of a more demographically diverse wave of travellers led by Asian visitors. Briefly, service organizations need to re-think: how they identify significant shifts in customer profile, the limits of their current service systems, decisions on service integration versus separation, how to transcend the traditional 5 Ps of services and, not least, how to prioritize humanism over efficiency in terms of service manpower training and development. Research limitations/implications – Though not exhaustive, the service management issues summarized and highlighted by this paper (and comprising this theme issue of WHATT) should serve to amplify the need to address the significant and enduring changes brought by the new wave of Asian travellers now enveloping services organizations throughout the world. Originality/value – The paper serves to identify several areas for service organizations to review and re-think which includes, among others, service interactions between front line service providers and customers, the evolving needs of visitors from Asia, how Asian customers perceive concepts of courtesy and politeness, as well as the use of language and culture in shaping and interpreting socio-cultural interactions in a service setting.

Desempenho dos Centros de Especialidades Odontológicas de uma Região de Saúde da Bahia

Resumo Este estudo avaliou o cumprimento das metas de desempenho dos Centros de Especialidades Odontológicas (CEOs) de municípios da Região de Saúde de Jequié, na Bahia. Descreveu-se o Cumprimento Global das Metas (CGM) e refletiu-se sobre as variáveis de caracterização dos serviços e dos municípios. Foram utilizados dados secundários do Sistema de Informação Ambulatorial do Sistema Único de Saúde (SIA-SUS), do Cadastro Nacional de Estabelecimentos de Saúde (CNES), do Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) e da Secretaria Estadual de Saúde da Bahia (SESAB). O desempenho dos CEOs da Região de Saúde de Jequié/BA foi considerado ruim para todos os estabelecimentos incluídos, pois não cumpriram nenhuma meta estipulada pelo Ministério da Saúde. Os dados sociodemográficos e a cobertura de equipes de saúde bucal pareceram não influenciar no desempenho, embora o tempo de habilitação e as condições estruturais e de recursos humanos dos estabelecimentos pareçam estar relacionadas à melhor produção. O baixo desempenho pode estar vinculado a problemas de gestão do serviço.

Тенденции развития концепции сервисного менеджмента: анализ зарубежных исследований

This article is an attempt to identify and summarize the main trends and issues in the international publications deals with service management in the field of tourism and hospitality. The article considers publications 2012-2015 years of sampling represented eight leading foreign journals of tourism, hospitality and service management: Journal of Service Science and Management, Journal of Service Management, Service Science, Tourism Management, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Annals of Tourism Research, International Journal of Hospitality Management и Journal of Hospitality Management and Tourism. Based on the review and grouping of publications relevant service management issues in tourism and hospitality, the author makes a conclusion about kinds of topics, that are among the most typical in this field and gives examples of works for demonstration how wide is chosen issues. As can be seen from publications noted in the article , in the international literature of tourism, hospitality and service science is widely investigated the problems of service management in the tourism and hospitality. The author distinguishes ten thematic areas of service management in the tourism and hospitality, which probably kindle the highest interest and which are represented by a large number of publications: 1) the perception by tourists of issues related to risk and safety; 2) factors of customer loyalty; 3) the tourists motivation; 4) joint creation and customization of the tourist product; 5) consumer impressions; 6) methodological aspects of measuring consumer satisfaction; 7) social responsibility of business in the tourism and hospitality; 8) attitude to workers in the sphere of tourism and hospitality; 9) the needs of elderly tourists and tourists with disabilities; 10) use of information technology by consumers of tourist products

A Quarter-Century Focus on Improving Service Quality

Excerpt] The first International Quality in Service Symposium (QUIS) that took place in 1988 in Karlstad, Sweden, represented a particularly important starting point and stimulus for the scientific discussion of service management issues. Since then, service management research has developed significantly, and a specific scientific community has evolved. At several prestigious universities all over the world, service research centers have been established and a growing number of service-related books have been published. Moreover, an increasing number of academic journals with a focus on services are gaining an international reputation.

Recent Advances in Mobile Middleware for Wireless Systems and Services

The most visible technology advance in the last decade is arguably the popular uses of wireless mobile handsets such as cellular phones. These devices are not just for phone calls, but also for the Internet access and management of mobile data. Many of them are equipped with positioning systems such as GPS, creating significant commercial opportunities for a range of new applications such as location-based services. Indeed, despite the recent economic downturn, the mobile computing industry continues to boom. A crucial technological challenge to develop applications for wireless mobile handsets is to deal with their heterogeneity. There are a large number of models running different operating systems. They come with vastly different capabilities in terms of computing power and applications they can support, and unlike traditional computers such as desktops and laptops, many times the software development kits are manufacturer-specific or even model-specific. Targeting at different consumer groups, they are also designed with different considerations on key components such as wireless interfaces, screen size, with or without keyboard/accelerometer/GPS, and so on. Developing novel mobile middleware solutions appears to be a natural strategy to circumvent the heterogeneity problem. By allowing application developers to concentrate their efforts on application logic, without taking into account the device-specific issues, the development and deployment of applications over heterogeneous mobile devices can be greatly accelerated and simplified. It is motivated by this belief that in 2008 the International Conference on MOBILe Wireless MiddleWARE, Operating Systems, and Applications (Mobilware) was launched with the specific goal to identify, propose, validate, and spread the adoption of open and interoperable software-support solutions, specifically designed and implemented for wireless mobile handsets. The past 2008 and 2009 editions of Mobilware were highly successful, attracting a large number of high-quality technical submissions from both academic and industrial communities. Mobilware’10 follows this success with a technical program that covers a wide range of hot issues in research and practitioning of mobile middleware technologies. Some papers address network, systems, and service management issues in dependence of location and context. Some contributions relate to middleware interface management, architectures, and security. A considerable part of the program is devoted to new applications for mobile services, such as multimedia, wireless sensor and vehicular network applications, and surveillance systems. This special section of MONET is organized with the extended versions of the papers selected from the best P. Bellavista University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy

Integrated Multimedia and Sensor Data Management in Heterogeneous Home Networks: a Concept Proposal

Home Area Networks designed for the delivery of both multimedia contents (e.g. TV programs, movies, music) and home automation services (e.g. household appliances commands, lighting and surveillance controls) are becoming widespread, especially thanks to the latest developments in wireless sensor and communication devices. This kind of networks, however, represents a new challenge for the networking field, particularly with respect to the integration of many different home and building automation solutions, that are not originally conceived to coexist and exchange data. Consequently, it is necessary to introduce an operational infrastructure able to interconnect differentdevices on the same communication link, or over different links, by means of a single user interface and a unified intelligence, thus making possible a complete and efficient management of the system. This paper outlines the main components in the design of an integrated home network architecture based on both commercial and customized devices developed ad-hoc, and provides preliminary results about the performance obtainable in the delivery of different data flows. The convergence of many differentiated services over IP-based architectures dramatically increases the amount of IP traffic to be delivered to the clients, so that Quality of Service management issues arise, and are to be taken into account.

Transformation of Access Services in the New Era

Today, accessing world information via search engines and discovery tools has changed how researchers and information users employ library resources eliciting their expectation for traditional library services. Additionally, social networking and wireless personal devices have created convenient new ways for people to obtain, produce, and share information instantaneously. The library is no longer the center that researchers must rely on to access information and research materials. This indeed has propelled the transformation of Access Services. Balancing emerging services and core services to meet the new expectations and demands of our users in the new era has become a major challenge for Access Services and for public services managers. In the new era, Access Services supports “many services to many users” onsite and online simultaneously, customer-driven one-stop service, along with seamless and embedded services. This article articulates the changing process in Access Services since the first transformation wave in the 1990s, identifies the new service dimensions of the most recent Access Services transformation wave, addresses the roles and challenges of Access Services managers and discusses service management issues in the transformation process.

Influenza A/H1N1_09: Australia and New Zealand's Winter of Discontent

Influenza A/H1N1_09 emerged in Mexico at the end of the Northern Hemisphere winter. Within weeks, the focus shifted to the Southern Hemisphere as the introduction of the novel virus coincided with the beginning of the influenza season. Intensive public health and health services planning had occurred in Australia and New Zealand as preparation for an influenza pandemic before 2009. However, this first pandemic wave was quite different to what had been expected. Key elements of the pandemic and response are outlined from the perspective of clinicians working at the frontline of patient care. In particular, they examine why past influenza pandemics and recent history are poor predictors of the current pandemic, the discordance between potential for transmission and disease severity, the broad clinical spectrum of H1N1_09 infection, clinical and health service management issues, and the relationship between health care and government policy. Finally, they address the need for the respiratory community to show leadership in times of crisis. Lessons learned in Australia and New Zealand during 2009 have important messages for similarly resourced countries in the Northern Hemisphere in the coming months as they face their own influenza season.

Exploring service issues within the IT organisation: Four mini-case studies

This case study paper presents four mini-case studies which explore IT service management issues within IT departments. It suggests that there is a shift in focus in IT away from the technical artefacts towards customer directed services. The case studies concern a hospital, a provider of marine charts, a logistics company and the batch operations of a bank. A range of issues are discussed including the provision of customer support, the acquisition of software and services, relationships with suppliers and the development of service strategy. The mini-case study is presented as a vehicle for identifying research issues and for teaching IT service management concepts in short tutorial sessions.

Customer satisfaction using QFD: an e‐banking case

Research on service quality and customer satisfaction has become significant in the service industries. This study develops a case study that considers both external and internal service management issues and subsequent service innovations based on the framework of quality function deployment (QFD). The application of the customer window quadrant (CWQ) and the action plan matrix in the analysis of customer and service elements constitute a different approach for QFD. Some benefits and disadvantages of the QFD process are discussed as compared to extant service quality and customer paradigms. Finally, suggestions and directions are offered for future applications, with particular interest in the e‐bank service management issues.

Quality function deployment: An extended framework for service quality and customer satisfaction in the hospitality industry

Research on service quality and customer satisfaction has become significant in the hospitality industry. Nonetheless, most previously proposed or introduced research paradigms have focused exclusively on customers without equally emphasizing the intra-organizational service generation and delivery processes. In contrast, this study considers both external and internal service management issues and subsequent service innovations based on the framework of Quality Function Deployment (QFD). QFD and its relationship to similar concepts are explained. Next, this study provides an overview of the QFD process and develops a hypothetical application in the lodging industry in order to illustrate future application and analysis strategies. Some benefits and disadvantages of the QFD process are discussed as compared to extant service quality and customer satisfaction paradigms. Finally, suggestions and directions are offered for future applications, with particular interest in hospitality-specific service management issues.

Supporting highly manageable Web services

This paper focuses on the management aspects of Web service provision. We argue that support for manageability has to be considered at the design stage if services are to be capable of delivering high levels of quality of service for their users. Examples of the problems caused by lack of manageability include maintenance operations that necessitate service downtime, or difficulties in ensuring consistency of information. We categorise management issues into those concerning a site as a whole and those pertaining to individual services. Our approach to site management supports the arbitrary distribution of services to machines, allowing the optimum cost/performance configuration to be selected. Services can be easily migrated between machines, resulting in sites that scale, both in terms of the number of services and the number of users. Service management issues may be generalised as supporting evolution, for example, supporting changes to the functionality, the presentation logic, and the overall look and feel of a service. Our approach, based on the separation of functionality and presentation, allows such changes to be performed on-line and ensures that updates are reflected consistency across the various pages of a service, or across services. This approach also facilitates the development of services that utilise dynamic content for service customisations, such as tailoring a service to match the profile of users. Furthermore, all management operations are available through Web-based interfaces, making them accessible to a broad range of users, not only specialist system administrators.

Customer-service training in academic libraries

In recent years libraries and academia have become increasingly interested in customer service and Total Quality Management issues. Reflecting these interests, academic librarians have implemented a variety of customer-service training programs. This article profiles selected customer-service training programs and popular customer-service videos.

An emulator for evaluating DQDB performance

This paper presents the design and implementation of a DQDB network emulator, developed at Lancaster University. The emulator uses standard Unix processes and System V named pipes to create a model of a Distributed Queue Dual Bus subnetwork of a Metropolitan Area Network. Apart from gaining insights into the DQDB protocol implementation based on a finite state machine model, the goals of the work reported in this paper included the performance evaluation of DQDB networks and the provisioning of a suitable platform to investigate various isochronous service management issues. The paper provides results on the operations of the distributed queue state machines and on the performance evaluation of DQDB networks. Finally, future developments of the emulator are identified.

Uncharted Territory: Academic Libraries and the Growth in Student Numbers

Considers the statistics and implications of a dramatic increase in student numbers in all UK higher education institutions. Considers also the changes in the nature of students enrolled, such as mature students and credit accumulation and transfer schemes; changes in the provision of higher education through modularization and new methods of course delivery, among others. Reviews levels of resourcing and discusses the effects on library services. Examines service provision, information skills, teaching and management issues; and highlights the resulting problems and opportunities facing higher education libraries in the UK. Examines the issues in more specific relationship to the experiences of four university libraries in the East Midlands of England.