Service Operations Management Research Articles

Acknowledgment to Guest Editors and Reviewers (2012)

Manufacturing & Service Operations Management (M&SOM) formally thanks the guest editors and reviewers, who provided expert counsel and guidance on a voluntary basis. Through their efforts, the journal was able to provide submitting authors with timely, thoughtful, and constructive reviews. In fact, for regular submissions and revisions that were submitted in 2012, M&SOM received 604 reviews from 362 individuals. Remarkably, 55% of those reviews were completed on or before their due date, a figure that increases to 62% if you allow a one-day grace period. Due in large part to the responsiveness of our reviewers, M&SOM made 96.5% of its 399 manuscript decisions for 2012 regular submissions and revisions within 75 days and 100% within 90 days. The following list acknowledges those who served from January to December 2012. On behalf of the editorial board and the submitting authors, we acknowledge their service to the journal and gratefully appreciate their contributions to our profession.

Focus on Authors

Focus on Authors

The relationship between operating efficiency and service quality: are they compatible?

Transferring and applying manufacturing principles and practices to improve both service efficiency and service quality is an important area of research in service operations. This paper advances this stream of research by examining the compatibility of operating efficiency and service quality. Specifically, our research addresses the following questions: (1) Do operating efficiency and service quality have to be traded off, or can they exist in unison (are they compatible)? and (2) What aspects of service quality have a stronger association with operating efficiency? In disentangling these important issues, we utilise a combination of data envelopment analysis (DEA) and survey-based empirical research methods. Additionally, our focus lies on a novel type of service industry where such research has been sparse. We evaluate the relative operating efficiencies of service driving agencies based on actual transaction data and subsequently analyse differences in service quality dimensions based on efficiencies. Overall, our analyses suggest important strategic decision-making implications for service operations managers and provide novel insights for academic research.

Sustainable Operations Management: An Enduring Stream, or Passing Fancy?

Paul Kleindorfer was among the first to weigh in on and nurture the stream of Sustainable Operations Management. The thoughts laid out here are based on conversations we had with Paul relating to the drivers underlying sustainability as a management issue: population and per capita consumption growth, the limited nature of resources and sinks, and the responsibility and exposure of firms to ensuing ecological risks and costs. We then discuss how an operations management lens contributes to the issue, and criteria to help the Sustainable Operations Management perspective endure. This article relates to a presentation delivered by Morris Cohen for Paul's Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Distinguished Fellows Award, given at Columbia University, June 18, 2012. We wrote this article at Paul's request.

Managing industrial service co-design: identifying challenges from technology firms

This article investigates how the co-design of industrial services is managed by technology firms. Through multiple-case studies within high-technology semiconductor companies, the article finds that overlapped stages and collective action require considerations on a case-by-case basis as determined by business opportunities, industry standards, existing organisational practice and service level agreements. The major contribution of this article is a connection between recent research emphasising the importance of providing industrial services, and established literature on co-design. Key service operations management challenges are also identified and discussed in terms of the need for studies and frameworks to coordinate negotiations for enhanced service encounters, to critique industrial service co-design, and to integrated information during service design.

2012 M&SOM Best Paper Award

I is a great pleasure to announce that the 2012 Manufacturing & Service Operations Management Best Paper Award goes to Victor F. Araman and Ioana Popescu for “Media Revenue Management with Audience Uncertainty: Balancing Upfront and Spot Market Sales” (2010). This paper was chosen as most deserving for its contribution to the theory and practice of operations management. For their accomplishment, Professors Araman and Popescu will share a $2,000 prize, generously contributed by the MSOM Society of INFORMS. Each year, the award is given to one paper published in one of the prior three volumes of M&SOM and is judged through a two-stage process. First, M&SOM Editor Steve Graves and a group of M&SOM Associate Editors review nominated papers to select four finalists. Second, an ad hoc committee, organized by the immediate past president of the MSOM Society, selects the best paper from among the finalists. This year, the ad hoc committee that selected the best paper was comprised of Gad Allon, Tava Olsen, and Robert Shumsky. Noah Gans, MSOM’s past president, organized the review process but did not act as a judge. The richness of the paper’s contribution is reflected in the reviewers’ many positive comments. For example, the following comment explains the paper’s motivation and interest:

OM Forum—Three Rs of Operations Management: Research, Relevance, and Rewards

This article presents three personal experiences and reflections on the process and objective of research in operations management. This invited OM Forum contribution is based on my Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Distinguished Fellow inaugural lecture given at Columbia University on June 18, 2012.

Optimising safety stock placement and lead time in an assembly supply chain using bi-objective MAX–MIN ant system

The problem of placing safety inventory over a network, which assembles a product, is a challenging issue in supply chain design (SCD) because manufacturers always want to reduce inventory all over the supply chain (SC). Moreover, the process of designing a SC and then placing inventory, to offer high service level at the lowest possible cost, across a complex SC, is not an easy task for decision makers. In this paper we use the SC representation proposed by Graves and Willems (2000), Manufacturing & Service Operations Management 2 (1), 68–83, where a SC is divided into many supplying, manufacturing, and delivering stages. Our problem is to select one resource option to perform each stage, and based on the selected options to place an amount of inventory (in-progress and on-hand) at each stage, in order to offer a satisfactory customer service level with as low as possible total supply chain cost. A resource option here represents a supplier, a manufacturing plant (production line), or a transport mode in a supplying, manufacturing, or delivering stage, respectively. We developed an approach based on ant colony optimisation (ACO) to minimise simultaneously the total supply chain cost and the products’ lead time to ensure product deliveries without delays. What are new in our approach are the bi-objective function and the computational efficiency of our ACO-based approach. In addition, ACO has not been applied to solve the inventory placement problem. As a validation of the model, we: (a) describe a successful application at CIFUNSA, one of the largest iron foundry in the world, and (b) compare different CPU time instances and metrics about multi-objective optimisation.

Entry Strategies in Business Process Offshoring

Business process offshoring (BPO) has emerged as an important strategy and a prevalent landscape in global service operations management. As one of the first attempts to analyze this challenging issue in an emerging market, this study examines how firms develop a set of global expansion strategies, including where (location), when (timing), and what (diversification), that are unique to BPO service operations. Our analysis of 424 BPO service operations centers in India demonstrates that BPO units with greater knowledge specialization tend to operate in more developed cities and that information connectivity, government support, and human resources competitiveness are critical locational determinants. Although BPO investment is less path dependent than traditional foreign direct investment, behavioral variables, such as assertiveness and pre-BPO experience in the host locations, are important factors behind the timing decision. Finally, BPO units involving lower knowledge specialization or higher process measurability are more diversified in terms of the number of business processes outsourced.

Service designs and mindsets - extracting experiential knowledge from service realisation

Effective service operations management leans heavily on information systems and humans. In practice, operational decisions require time-consuming information mining, and time is money. If an employee can interpret the environment and operational information without shared rules, the risk of making costly wrong assumptions and decisions is high. We propose that creating better understanding of how an employee experiences an operational event can reveal information that is not currently available. This study focuses on conceptualising the employee experience by designing a method for extracting experiential knowledge from the employee’s perspective and using this knowledge during resource configuration. The designed artefact has been field-tested and evaluated in a healthcare system according to design science principles. The results provide an innovative contribution to service operations management when trying to release time for right and productive activities. By utilising the experiential knowledge, service managers will be able to decrease the complexity in service systems.

A linear response bandit problem

Open AccessOpen Access licenseAboutSectionsView PDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail Go to SectionOpen AccessOpen Access license HomeStochastic SystemsVol. 3, No. 1 A Linear Response Bandit ProblemAlexander Goldenshluger, Assaf ZeeviAlexander Goldenshluger, Assaf ZeeviPublished Online:26 Aug 2013https://doi.org/10.1287/11-SSY032AbstractWe consider a two–armed bandit problem which involves sequential sampling from two non-homogeneous populations. The response in each is determined by a random covariate vector and a vector of parameters whose values are not known a priori. The goal is to maximize cumulative expected reward. We study this problem in a minimax setting, and develop rate-optimal polices that combine myopic action based on least squares estimates with a suitable “forced sampling” strategy. It is shown that the regret grows logarithmically in the time horizon n and no policy can achieve a slower growth rate over all feasible problem instances. In this setting of linear response bandits, the identity of the sub-optimal action changes with the values of the covariate vector, and the optimal policy is subject to sampling from the inferior population at a rate that grows like n. Previous Back to Top Next FiguresReferencesRelatedInformationCited ByAdaptive Design of Personalized Dose-Finding Clinical TrialsSaeid Delshad, Amin Khademi21 July 2022 | Service Science, Vol. 0, No. 0Adaptive Sequential Experiments with Unknown Information Arrival ProcessesYonatan Gur, Ahmadreza Momeni10 June 2022 | Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Vol. 0, No. 0Fast Rates for Contextual Linear OptimizationYichun Hu, Nathan Kallus, Xiaojie Mao29 March 2022 | Management Science, Vol. 68, No. 6Smooth Contextual Bandits: Bridging the Parametric and Nondifferentiable Regret RegimesYichun Hu, Nathan Kallus, Xiaojie Mao7 February 2022 | Operations Research, Vol. 0, No. 0Smoothness-Adaptive Contextual BanditsYonatan Gur, Ahmadreza Momeni, Stefan Wager26 January 2022 | Operations Research, Vol. 0, No. 0Multimodal Dynamic PricingYining Wang, Boxiao Chen, David Simchi-Levi27 January 2021 | Management Science, Vol. 67, No. 10Ranking and Selection with Covariates for Personalized Decision MakingHaihui Shen, L. Jeff Hong, Xiaowei Zhang12 February 2021 | INFORMS Journal on Computing, Vol. 33, No. 4Shrinking the Upper Confidence Bound: A Dynamic Product Selection Problem for Urban WarehousesRong Jin, David Simchi-Levi, Li Wang, Xinshang Wang, Sen Yang12 January 2021 | Management Science, Vol. 67, No. 8Nonparametric Pricing Analytics with Customer CovariatesNingyuan Chen, Guillermo Gallego15 February 2021 | Operations Research, Vol. 69, No. 3Mostly Exploration-Free Algorithms for Contextual BanditsHamsa Bastani, Mohsen Bayati, Khashayar Khosravi27 July 2020 | Management Science, Vol. 67, No. 3Dynamic Assortment Personalization in High DimensionsNathan Kallus, Madeleine Udell13 May 2020 | Operations Research, Vol. 68, No. 4Online Decision Making with High-Dimensional CovariatesHamsa Bastani, Mohsen Bayati7 November 2019 | Operations Research, Vol. 68, No. 1Optimal Prescriptive TreesDimitris Bertsimas, Jack Dunn, Nishanth Mundru16 April 2019 | INFORMS Journal on Optimization, Vol. 1, No. 2 Volume 3, Issue 1June 2013Pages 1-321 Article Information Metrics Downloaded 328 times in the past 12 months Information Received:August 01, 2011Published Online:August 26, 2013 Copyright © 2013, The author(s)Cite asAlexander Goldenshluger, Assaf Zeevi (2013) A Linear Response Bandit Problem. Stochastic Systems 3(1):230-261. https://doi.org/10.1287/11-SSY032 KeywordsSequential allocationestimationbandit problemsregretminimaxrate–optimal policyPDF download

Tuning approximate dynamic programming policies for ambulance redeployment via direct search

Open AccessOpen Access licenseAboutSectionsView PDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail Go to SectionOpen AccessOpen Access license HomeStochastic SystemsVol. 3, No. 2 Tuning Approximate Dynamic Programming Policies for Ambulance Redeployment via Direct SearchMatthew S. Maxwell, Shane G. Henderson, Huseyin TopalogluMatthew S. Maxwell, Shane G. Henderson, Huseyin TopalogluPublished Online:15 Nov 2013https://doi.org/10.1287/10-SSY020AbstractIn this paper we consider approximate dynamic programming methods for ambulance redeployment. We first demonstrate through simple examples how typical value function fitting techniques, such as approximate policy iteration and linear programming, may not be able to locate a high-quality policy even when the value function approximation architecture is rich enough to provide the optimal policy. To make up for this potential shortcoming, we show how to use direct search methods to tune the parameters in a value function approximation architecture so as to obtain high-quality policies. Direct search is computationally intensive. We therefore use a post-decision state dynamic programming formulation of ambulance redeployment that, together with direct search, requires far less computation with no noticeable performance loss. We provide further theoretical support for the post-decision state formulation of the ambulance-deployment problem by showing that this formulation can be obtained through a limiting argument on the original dynamic programming formulation. Back to Top Next FiguresReferencesRelatedInformationCited byInpatient Overflow: An Approximate Dynamic Programming ApproachJ. G. Dai, Pengyi Shi16 May 2019 | Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Vol. 21, No. 4A Unified Framework for Optimization Under UncertaintyWarren B. Powell4 November 2016The Minimum Expected Penalty Relocation Problem for the Computation of Compliance Tables for Ambulance VehiclesThije van Barneveld21 April 2016 | INFORMS Journal on Computing, Vol. 28, No. 2Discrete Optimization Models for Homeland Security and Disaster ManagementLaura Albert McLay26 October 2015Simulation-Based Approximate Policy Iteration with Generalized Logistic FunctionsAntoine Sauré, Jonathan Patrick, Martin L. Puterman28 September 2015 | INFORMS Journal on Computing, Vol. 27, No. 3Technical Note—Trading Off Quick versus Slow Actions in Optimal SearchSteven M. Shechter, Farhad Ghassemi, Yasin Gocgun, Martin L. Puterman6 March 2015 | Operations Research, Vol. 63, No. 2A Bound on the Performance of an Optimal Ambulance Redeployment PolicyMatthew S. Maxwell, Eric Cao Ni, Chaoxu Tong, Shane G. Henderson, Huseyin Topaloglu, Susan R. Hunter16 July 2014 | Operations Research, Vol. 62, No. 5 Volume 3, Issue 2December 2013Pages 322-633 Article Information Metrics Information Received:November 01, 2010Published Online:November 15, 2013 Copyright © 2013, The author(s)Cite asMatthew S. Maxwell, Shane G. Henderson, Huseyin Topaloglu (2013) Tuning Approximate Dynamic Programming Policies for Ambulance Redeployment via Direct Search. Stochastic Systems 3(2):322-361. https://doi.org/10.1287/10-SSY020 PDF download

Many-server queues with customer abandonment: Numerical analysis of their diffusion model

Open AccessOpen Access licenseAboutSectionsView PDF ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail Go to SectionOpen AccessOpen Access license HomeStochastic SystemsVol. 3, No. 1 Many-server Queues with Customer Abandonment: Numerical Analysis of their Diffusion ModelJ. G. Dai, Shuangchi HeJ. G. Dai, Shuangchi HePublished Online:20 May 2013https://doi.org/10.1287/11-SSY029AbstractWe use a multidimensional diffusion process to approximate the dynamics of a queue served by many parallel servers. Waiting customers in this queue may abandon the system without service. To analyze the diffusion model, we develop a numerical algorithm for computing its stationary distribution. A crucial part of the algorithm is choosing an appropriate reference density. Using a conjecture on the tail behavior of the limit queue length process, we propose a systematic approach to constructing a reference density. With the proposed reference density, the algorithm is shown to converge quickly in numerical experiments. These experiments demonstrate that the diffusion model is a satisfactory approximation for many-server queues, sometimes for queues with as few as twenty servers. Previous Back to Top Next FiguresReferencesRelatedInformationCited BySRPT Scheduling Discipline in Many-Server Queues with Impatient CustomersJing Dong, Rouba Ibrahim21 October 2021 | Management Science, Vol. 67, No. 12Diffusion Approximation for Efficiency-Driven Queues When Customers Are PatientShuangchi He22 May 2020 | Operations Research, Vol. 68, No. 4Dynamic Scheduling in a Many-Server, Multiclass System: The Role of Customer Impatience in Large SystemsJeunghyun Kim, Ramandeep S. Randhawa, Amy R. Ward11 April 2018 | Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Vol. 20, No. 2Stein’s Method for Steady-state Diffusion Approximations: An Introduction through the Erlang-A and Erlang-C ModelsAnton Braverman, J. G. Dai, Jiekun Feng17 February 2017 | Stochastic Systems, Vol. 6, No. 2A Unified Approach to Diffusion Analysis of Queues with General Patience-Time DistributionsJunfei Huang, Hanqin Zhang, Jiheng Zhang3 March 2016 | Mathematics of Operations Research, Vol. 41, No. 3 Volume 3, Issue 1June 2013Pages 1-321 Article Information Metrics Downloaded 129 times in the past 12 months Information Received:April 01, 2011Published Online:May 20, 2013 Copyright © 2013, The author(s)Cite asJ. G. Dai, Shuangchi He (2013) Many-server Queues with Customer Abandonment: Numerical Analysis of their Diffusion Model. Stochastic Systems 3(1):96-146. https://doi.org/10.1287/11-SSY029 KeywordsDiffusion processstationary distributionphase-type distributionmany-server queueheavy trafficcustomer abandonmentquality- and efficiency-driven regimePDF download

Constructing Taipei City Sports Centre Performance Evaluation Model with Fuzzy MCDM Approach Based on Views of Managers

This study aims to utilize the fuzzy analytical/network process (FAHP/FANP) and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) approach to recognize the influential indicators of sport centre business management in Taipei city’s sports centre. Twenty-three of sports centres with six-dimensions were identified from the literature review and interview with twelve experts (academic and practical experience). By considering the interrelationships among the indices, DEMATEL was used to deal with the importance and causal relationships among the evaluation indices of sports centre. Then, we employ the FAHP/FANP to determine the weight of each management criterion. Our empirical results provide two main insights: first, sports centre business management strategies comprise six-dimensions and 23 indexes; second, the FANP analysis shows that the six key factors are (in order of priority) service price, site conditions, operations management, traffic conditions, sports products, and staff quality. This study uses the FANP and DEMATEL along with mathematical computing in order to provide sports centre managers with a reliable decision-making reference and to assist them in formulating the most effective business strategy possible.

Measuring Online Tourism Service Operations

This paper aims to empirically examine online tourism service operations from the demand-side perspective. In the present work, we propose a research model and hypotheses to measure the mediation effect of tourist satisfaction between online service quality and tourist loyalty to online tourism services. We also use structural equation modeling to test the research model together with the hypotheses using the survey data collected from individual tourists. The empirical results justify the reasoning of online service quality, tourist satisfaction, and loyalty and confirm the measurement scale of online service quality with regard to website design, information quality, and information security. The findings contribute to theory and practice in online tourism services and provide useful insights for online service operations management in different contexts.

Using matrix approximation for high-dimensional discrete optimization problems: Server consolidation based on cyclic time-series data

We consider the assignment of enterprise applications in virtual machines to physical servers, also known as server consolidation problem. Data center operators try to minimize the number of servers, but at the same time provide sufficient computing resources at each point in time. While historical workload data would allow for accurate workload forecasting and optimal allocation of enterprise applications to servers, the volume of data and the large number of resulting capacity constraints in a mathematical problem formulation renders this task impossible for any but small instances. We use singular value decomposition (SVD) to extract significant features from a large constraint matrix and provide a new geometric interpretation of these features, which allows for allocating large sets of applications efficiently to physical servers with this new formulation. While SVD is typically applied for purposes such as time series decomposition, noise filtering, or clustering, in this paper features are used to transform the original allocation problem into a low-dimensional integer program with only the extracted features in a much smaller constraint matrix. We evaluate the approach using workload data from a large data center and show that it leads to high solution quality, but at the same time allows for solving considerably larger problem instances than what would be possible without data reduction and model transform. The overall approach could also be applied to similar packing problems in service operations management.

About Our Authors

About Our Authors

Research on management issues in the pharmaceutical industry: a literature review

PurposeThis paper aims to present a review of literature to assess the progress of research on managerial issues in the pharmaceutical industry globally.Design/methodology/approachLiterature from peer‐reviewed journals available on online databases was collected for the last decade, using the keyword search technique, and then classifying it according to major managerial issues, research methodologies used and geographical zones.FindingsBehavioral issues at the consumer/physician level and non‐behavioral issues in pricing and medical expenses are studied the most, followed by supply chain management, research and development and manufacturing and services operations management. There is scope for conjunction of research efforts across themes and players. The studies focus on the developed nations through the application of field research and mathematical modeling techniques. The studies in the American region focus more on development and marketing while studies in Europe are aligned towards manufacturing and distribution in the industry. Studies in the developing nations are mostly exploratory in nature and require more focus on issues of research and development and marketing in addition to a substantial increase in overall research efforts. More trans‐continental studies are needed to consolidate research efforts globally.Research limitations/implicationsThe review is not exhaustive of all studies available on the industry and each of the issues. Conference papers, unpublished material and lectures were excluded.Practical implicationsIdentification of the present and emerging issues together provides practitioners in healthcare systems with an idea of available techniques and strategies to solve problems in healthcare/pharmaceutical management.Originality/valueA study on research of management issues in the pharmaceutical industry across the world has perhaps not been conducted in the recent past: this paper fills part of that gap.

An exploratory study of strategic operations audit methods in services

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to close the gap between theoretical approaches to strategic operations auditing and empirical analysis of practice in service organisations. Through analysis of the two different views of strategy formulation – environment‐market and resource‐based – the paper aims to provide insights on how strategic operations audit methods are being used and under what circumstances.Design/methodology/approachThe case study methodology was employed which involved a three‐stage data collection and analytical process. Its purpose was to identify how strategic operations audit methods were being used, why they were used and the particular circumstances of their use. Trails of operational improvement within each of six case studies show links between service operational activities, the benefits achieved by the improvements and the formulation and/or execution of each service company's business strategy. These trails of improvement provided a means by which to reveal some of the strategic operations audit methods being used. In addition, interviews and analysis of supporting documentation ensured the complete set of methods being utilised was identified.FindingsThe results indicate three main findings. First it is recognised that the service companies all look to adopt a top down approach to strategic operations auditing and seek to maintain, and where possible, gain greater strategic impact from their service operations. Second, the competitive state of the business impacts the choice of strategic operations audit method used. All companies studied employed an environment‐market method to assess operations – market fit. Only when a company is confident of its competitive position will managers then look to also devise a resource‐based method in order to assess its current ability to nurture new capabilities to exploit. Third, companies use a variety of integration techniques to verify on‐going cohesion across infrastructural decision‐making categories of the content of service operations strategy. The assessment of cohesion within service operations strategy takes place within subsets of the content of the strategy. The authors did not find integration techniques that hone structural decision categories or service operations strategy as a whole. The results also show that methods used by managers are pale imitations of the rigorous procedures originally devised by researchers.Practical implicationsService operations managers possess inadequate understanding of how the application of a strategic operations audit method should be made and limited ability to undertake the audit in a structured and meaningful way. A strategic operations audit methods selection process is put forward to remedy this. The process acknowledges that the choice of a particular method is contingent on the stage of development of the company's service operations strategy. It guides managers through the decision‐making process of what strategic operations audit method to use and when managers should be using it. The message for academics is that new resource‐based methods need to be created that are accessible to managers and relevant when service operations strategy has successfully evolved to the point where greater influence is being sought from it in the formulation of business strategy.Originality/valueAn empirical study within service operations management of the practice of strategic operations auditing is rare. The paper's findings begin to address the gap between theory and practice. The paper presents revisions and additions to the operations manager's tool kit of strategic operations audit methods and culminates in a selection process to guide managers on which tool to use and when.

Defining the scope of service operations management: an investigation on the factors that affect the span of responsibility of the operations department in service companies

This article deals with the definition of the scope of operations management (OM) in service companies. Operations, in service companies, are often dispersed throughout the organisation and so it is difficult to understand where OM tools and practices can be applied and who should be in charge of their implementation. Starting from the assumption that the actual scope of service operations is influenced by the degree of variety of the offering and of variability of the delivery process, this article analyses three case studies in an attempt to understand whether and why operations, in these companies, include different activities. This article argues that three factors affect the perceived scope of OM, namely: the dominant culture; the existence of industry-specific regulations and the endowment of facilities.