Speedy Service Research Articles

Enhancing queuing theory realism: analysis of reneging behavior impact on M/M/1 drive-thru service system

Individuals seeking services through drive-thru queuing and waiting, anticipate speedy service. However, long queues often prompt customers' impatience, leading to reneging and the early departure from a queue due to perceived excessive waiting. Reneging behavior is often disregarded in queuing analysis, undermining the accuracy and management of queues, resulting in a misrepresentation of real-world scenarios. This study delves into an extensive analysis of a 123-h M/M/1 drive-thru service queue, examining reneging probability and its correlation with customers’ sensitivity to arrival times. Findings reveal that the time between reneging events follows an Exponential distribution, challenging the assumption of a Poisson distribution for reneging rates. The traditional calculation of queue intensity neglects reneging and service abandonment, necessitating modifications to core queuing theory equations for practicality. Integrating reneging behavior enhances the theory’s applicability to real-life queuing dilemmas, improving accuracy and interpretability for effective queue management analysis and strategies, thus directly benefiting business management of queuing systems.

Emerging Issues on the Performance of Ward Executive Officers in Tanzania

For effective and speedy service delivery the Local Government (Urban Authorities) Act, 1982 established the ward system in urban areas. Wards Executive Officers (WEO) supervise all government activities and Ward Development Programs at the ward level. Despite the efforts made by the Government of Tanzania to ensure that the communities in the wards have access to quality services, wards still experience poor service delivery. This study aimed to investigate emerging issues affecting the performance of Ward Executive Officers in delivering services in the wards. The study was conducted at Morogoro Municipal Council and employed the qualitative technique. The data collection methods were in-depth interviews and documentary reviews. Qualitative data were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Data were collected from 29 wards of Morogoro Municipal Council. Findings from the study indicated that inadequate human resources, financial resources, lack of career development, lack of training, and a poor working environment mostly influenced the performance of Ward Executive officers. The study recommends strengthening the availability of resources and a conducive environment for the effective performance of Ward Executive Officers.

Relevance of Savitribai Phule’s Ideas in OTME-industry Partnership for Female Students Empowerment in Federal College of Education (Technical) Akoka, Yaba, Lagos State

The study was poised to the relevance of Savitribai Phule’s ideas in OTME-industry partnership for female students’ empowerment in Federal College of Education (Technical) Akoka, Yaba, Lagos state. Savitribai Phule’s ideas create human awareness to deal with societal problems and bring equality with social change in the face of a society that exhibits submissive behavior, lack of social awareness, inhuman approach towards casteism, untouched ability, child exploitation, corruption and issues about reservation policies, religious discrepancy and power imbalance leading to social discrimination. Academic activities of Office Technology and Management Education (OTME) are not confined in the classrooms in the college, however, close cooperation between the department of OTME and various organisations in order to establish strong partnership towards the achievement of economic development, especially in light of the rapid pace of changes in the individual’s environment; including technological development, speedy services and openness to foreign markets that help them adapt to their environment and contribute to the settlement of their problems and their societies. The study found out that, one of the Savitribai Phule’s ideas was that an industrial department should be attached to the schools where children could learn useful trades and crafts and be able to manage their lives comfortably and independently. This suggests regular industrial training alongside with academic work which the college term Students’ Industrial Work Experience Scheme (S.I.W.E.S) which is run in partnership with cooperating organizations. However, with the Savitribai’s idea, female students should be mentored and monitored during and after S.I.W.E.S to ensure that, they become self-reliant even after graduation from the college and as such become employers of labour. The study recommended that microfinance banks and other financial institutions charged with the responsibility of funding small businesses should be encouraged to work in partnership to fund OTME female graduates with good and viable business ideas so as to create more jobs in society.

Social Service Robot using Gesture recognition technique

A robot is a machine that can automatically do a task or a series of tasks based on its programming and environment. They are artificially built machines or devices that can perform activities with utmost accuracy and precision minimizing time constraints. Service robots are technologically advanced machines deployed to service and maintain certain activities. Research findings convey the essential fact that serving robots are now being deployed worldwide. Social robotics is one such field that heavily involves an interaction between humans and an artificially built machine. These man-built machines interact with humans and can also understand social terms and words. Modernization has bought changes in design and mechanisms due to this ever-lasting growth in technology and innovation. Therefore, food industries are also dynamically adapting to the new changes in the field of automation to reduce human workload and increase the quality of service. Deployment of a robot in the food industries which help to aid deaf and mute people who face social constraints is an ever-growing challenge faced by engineers for the last few decades. Moreover, a contactless form of speedy service system which accomplishes its task with at most precision and reduced complexity is a feat yet to be perfected. Preservation of personal hygiene, a better quality of service, and reduced labour costs is achieved.

Business Process Re-engineering and Courier Firms’ Delivery Speed in South East Zone of Nigeria

This study was conducted to examine the influence of business process re-engineering (BPR) on Courier firms’ delivery speed in South East Zone of Nigeria. The survey research design was adopted in this study. The study had a population of 239 and sample size of 149. The research instrument recorded 78% response rate. Research data were analyzed with multiple regression. Findings of this study showed that business process re-engineering had a significant positive influence on courier firms ‘delivery speed in the South East Zone of Nigeria. Specifically, it was established that business process renovation exerted a significant positive influence on courier firms’ delivery speed (Beta =0.752, t=4.099, p<0.05); business process automation exerted a significant positive influence on courier firms’ delivery speed (Beta =0.782, t=5.179, p<0.05) and that business process networking exerted a significant positive influence oncourier firms’ delivery speed (Beta 1.039, t=4.023, p<0.05). Following these findings, it was recommended that the Management of courier firms in the South East Zone of Nigeria should regularly renovate their service processes through replacement of old and outdated machines and equipment, prioritize the automation of aspects of its operations through increased investment in emerging ICT infrastructure and should network its work system to effectively integrate its employees, processes and technology so as to facilitate speedy service delivery that delights clients and so commands repeat patronage.

QUICKSERV: a service quality assessment tool for the quick-service restaurant industry

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to empirically develop and validate a practical, consistent and specific scale to assess perceived service quality at the service encounter at quick-service restaurants (QSRs).Design/methodology/approachDevelopment and validation of the scale involved a five-stage process. Data were collected from 430 customers of a QSR belonging to an international brand located in Barcelona. Surveys were applied immediately after the service encounter, using the face-to-face method. The scale development procedure involved exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses.FindingsThe results suggest a specific and parsimonious measurement scale, whose structure comprises 14 items in four dimensions. In contrast to previous studies, this study identified the appropriateness of splitting the interaction quality dimension into two single dimensions, one focusing on the interaction time and other on staff–customer interaction. Furthermore, these indicate that a speedy service, pleasant treatment and food quality are the most valued attributes in QSR.Practical implicationsThis scale is a useful instrument to administer and assure service quality standards within QSR management systems. Its practical approach and short survey length ease data collection, considering that customers spend short amounts of time in this type of restaurant. Furthermore, it could also be used by franchisors and restaurant operators as a tool to monitor continuing compliance with service quality standards.Originality/valueThe resulting scale introduces a novel four-factor structure with high goodness of fit to effectively measure customers' perceived service quality in QSRs, where the ease of use and speed of gathering client responses are a key factor for successful implementation.

ADOPTION AND ACCESS OF E-LIBRARY SERVICES IN UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES OF NORTH WEST ZONE OF NIGERIA

This paper examined the adoption and access of E-library services in University library of North west zone of Nigeria. Survey research method was adopted to carry out the study using descriptive research methodology. The population used under this study comprised all the state federal, state and private universities in North–West Geo-political zone of Nigeria, comprises of seventeen (17) studied universities, the population considered to be subject of the study includes other professional and non-professional staff in the Nigerian university libraries on the position of university librarian circumstantially. The sample size depends on the nature of the research of the study. It is however proposed to have a sample of seventeen (17) universities, therefore the number of the universities is manageable, and therefore no sampling is required. The instruments used data collection is questionnaire. Stratified sampling technique was used in selecting the secondary population of the study. Data was also analyzed using descriptive analysis using frequency tables and percentages. Stratified sampling technique was used in selecting the secondary population of the study. The administration of the questionnaire was carried out by the co researchers and assisted by three (3) research assistants. The study found that, adoption and accessing of the electronic library services and resources in Nigerian university libraries of North-west Geo-political Zone are basically for the purpose of effective, reliable, and adequate library information dissemination. The study has also identified that some universities have for long adopted and established the electronic unit earlier than other university libraries in the North-west Geo-political Zone of Nigeria. Consequent to that, it has been identified that all the sampled university libraries have established the electronic unit for the purpose of information dissemination via electronic devices for rapid and speedy information services. The study has further revealed that majority of the electronic unit or managers of the electronic section are specialists in the area of library and information science. The study recommends that encouragement from the government will give enough room and opportunity to provide adequate transformation of information electronically in Nigerian University libraries of north-west geo-political zone. There is the need for the university libraries to concretely form a consortium for the formation of unified electronic services and electronic resource sharing e.g. Universities library consortium, Hinary, Lefel, etc. One of the greatest challenges or threats to the adoption and accessing or sustainability of using the electronic resources in Nigeria is the issue of power supply. Efforts should be made by the authority concern to provide alternative in case of power failure during the transformation services. The alternative probably might be the provision of solar power or standby generator in order to alleviate the challenge of inadequacy or none supply of electricity power supply. University libraries being an academic institution library should try by all means to promote their electronic resources and services for the university community members to be aware of their availability and existence. 
 
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How Culture Moderates the Effects of Justice in Service Recovery

AbstractThis article strives to clarify the importance and the effects of cultural differences on consumer satisfaction after a service failure in an individualistic society (Canada) vs. a collectivistic society (Japan). We focus on young, educated consumers to analyze if the contrasts shown in the extant literature between these two cultures are still relevant in the case of young consumers of both cultures when confronted with a service failure and service recovery. We used 150 questionnaires from Japan and Canada, the design of which reflects our theoretical model. Respondents were asked to recall one of their own negative service experience and the service recovery that may have followed. Our statistical analysis is based on Hayes’s PROCESS that allows to test complex moderated and mediated relations. We find that Anger mediates the relation between failure severity and consumer behavioral responses (EXIT and NWOM) similarly for both Japanese and Canadian consumers. Importantly, compensation, involving procedural and distributive justice (i. e. time – speedy service recovery and money) both reduced consumer anger, more so for individualistic consumers. Surprisingly, interactional justice (e. g. courteousness, politeness, and signs of respect) had no impact on neither individualistic nor collectivistic consumers. Our findings suggest that service providers should first fix the negative emotional reactions as a result of service failure. They may reduce this emotional reaction offering monetary compensation to both Individualistic and Collectivistic consumers. Younger collectivistic consumers are not more sensitive to signs of respect and politeness than individualistic consumers, which may show that the younger generation of Japanese consumers is getting closer to the individualistic culture.

Provision of water and sanitation during the Covid-19 crisis : comparative case study in predominantly urban and predominantly rural provinces

The South African Local Government is mandated by the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa to serve the needs of their communities by providing a democratic and accountable government for local communities, ensure the provision of services such water and electricity to communities in a sustainable manner, promote social and economic development, promote a safe and healthy environment and encourage the involvement of communities and community organisations in the maetrs of local government (RSA 1996; Parliament of the Republic of South Africa 2018). The Government of South Africa created a three-tier governance layer, that is, national, provincial, and the local layer, to enable provision of essential services to citizens. The local layer was created as a decentralisation strategy to bring government closer to citizens and for speedy service delivery (Siddle: cited in Makale 2015). It is categorised into metropolitan, district, and local municipalities with diefrent service delivery mechanisms aimed at enhancing service delivery (RSA 1998). Despite the existence of the Local Government structure, the South African government continues to have deficient delivery of basic services such as water, housing, electricity, education, health, and sanitation especially in black urban townships as well as in rural areas in South Africa. According to the 2013 General Household Survey findings, provinces consisting mainly of urban areas and formal agricultural rural areas, that is Western Cape, Gauteng, Free State, and North West, had beetr access to basic services compared to predominantly rural provinces, that is, Eastern Cape, Limpopo, KwaZuluNatal, and Northern Cape (Statistics SA 2014). The reason for the beetr levels of basic municipal services in the predominantly urban provinces was their close proximity to points of interest such as airports, mines, national roads, educational and health facilities (Makale 2015). The provision of basic services to certain communities in South Africa has met challenges as local government still struggles to ensure that services reach all citizens. Certain areas within South Africa are still underdeveloped with lack of access to basic services and residents live in poverty. The revenue for municipalities in these areas is negatively impacted as they strive to do more with less ifnancial resources to ensure that basic services reach every citizen (Makale 2015). As a result, South African municipalities make headlines due to the unending reports of service delivery protests for not delivering on their mandate.

DIAGNOSTIC ASSESSMENT OF SERVICE DELIVERY HEALTH IN SOUTH AFRICA: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW

Access to cost-effective, high-quality and speedy public services is a legitimate requirement and expectation of all South Africans. However, despite massive increases in successive budgets and grants to the public sector, the economy continues to witness frequent unrest that is typically tagged as being about ‘ service delivery ’ . To deal effectively with this conundrum, an evidence- driven, goal-oriented diagnosis of the health of service delivery in South Africa is required. This is even more important as service delivery deficits and backlogs have continued to grow and widen since democratisation. It is therefore pertinent that a diagnostic tool with a sound and rigid theoretical foundation, and rigorously evaluated against key performance metrics, be developed as part of efforts to close service delivery gaps. This paper explores the necessary criteria for a diagnostic tool to contribute effectively in closing service delivery gaps in South Africa.

Rural Citizens'Awareness and Constraints Regarding Common Service Centres: A Study of Rohtak Block (Haryana)

Government service at the citizens’ door through Common Service Centres (CSCs) is a welcome step. It is a citizen-centric e-governance programme which facilitates many services to the citizens under a single roof with the aim of lower cost, speedy service and nearest to the citizens’ residence. The centres provide services like government to the citizen, business to citizen (B2C), educational, financial and others. In Haryana, the CSCs are currently known as Atal Sewa Kendras (ASKs). It is a good step of the government and the success of any government policy and project depends upon the awareness of the citizens which in turn enhance their participation in administrative process. So, by keeping this point in view, the study has been conducted with the aim to check the awareness among the rural citizens about the CSCs and the problems being faced by the beneficiaries while getting services at CSCs.

Impact of Telecommuting on Employees’ Performance

This work examined the impact of telecommuting on employees’ performance. The dynamic nature of the environment in which our organizations operate and customers need made this investigation very necessary. The objectives of the study were; to find out if arrangement that enables employee to work at home has a positive relationship with better quality of work and to ascertain whether an arrangement that allows employee to work at agreed location has significant relationship with speedy service delivery. To achieve the objectives, a survey research design was adopted. The techniques employed in analyzing the data were descriptive statistics and spearman rank correlation coefficient. The results indicated that the arrangement that enables employee to work at home has a weak and positive relationship with better quality of work. It was also found that arrangement that allows employee to work at agreed location has a significant relationship with speedy service delivery. Based on the findings, the researcher concluded that telecommuting has impact on employee performance. It was recommended that managers of telecommunication out-fits should continue with the arrangement that allows employees to work at agreed location since it was found to have significant relationship with speedy service delivery but also ensure that, there is a strong mechanism on ground to monitor the activities of the telecommuters.

A Conceptual Model for Electronic Document and Records Management System Adoption in Malaysian Public Sector

The government has spent a large amount of fortune in ascertaining that their information management practice meets the widely accepted standards of practice for enhancing the systematic, speedy, effective and efficient information service delivery. The rapid development of ICT has urged the public sector to shift their operations from manual to electronic system-based in handling the information-related works. Electronic Document and Records Management System (EDRMS) is one of the systems to be considered . However, the adoption rate of such a system is exceptionally below satisfaction due to users are not keen on using it. In this paper, the factors which influence the decision on whether EDRMS should be adopted or otherwise are identified. A qualitative study involving a critical review of the related literature in the area and interviews were employed. The interviews involve EDRMS experts from the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU) and the National Archive of Malaysia (NAM) . There are 14 factors identified as impacting the decision to adopt EDRMS offered by the Technology Adoption Theories and the literature review. However, only ten factors were given the consideration upon being validated and ranked by the selected experts. A new conceptual model for EDRMS adoption in Malaysian public sector was then constructed as the ultimate outcome of the study.

The role of communication contact in capitation implementation at public health centres in Denpasar

Background and purpose: One of the main indicators of quality in the provision of primary health care is the contact between the provider and the recipient (communication contact). Targets set regarding communication contacts are often not achieved which in turn results in consequent cuts in the capitation rates received by the public health centres (PHCs). The purpose of this research is to understand the implementation, inhibiting and enabling factors of supporting communication contact in the era of National Health Insurance (Jaminan Kesehatan Nasional/JKN).Methods: This study used a qualitative explorative design through in-depth interviews and focus group discussion (FGD) with 22 informants consisting of heads of PHCs, PHCs staff, Head of Denpasar Health Office, Head of Social Security Administering Agency (BPJS) Denpasar Branch and JKN members. This research was conducted at 11 PHCs in Denpasar City from April to July 2017. The informants were chosen purposively and the data were analysed thematically to explore aspects of implementation, the inhibiting and enabling factors of communication contact.Results: Communication contacts can be assessed both inside and outside the PHCs buildings. The inhibiting factor of communication contact implementation related to difference in understanding of the concept of PHCs working area, the absence of a standard operational procedure (SOP) for communication contact, heavy workload of PHCs service providers, lack of optimal means of supporting application of pcare convoluted and confusing information from BPJS, and lack of understanding from JKN enrolees on the particulars of the administration and desire for speedy service. Supporting factors are the availability of media, training and orientation for the implementing staff and the feedback from BPJS to PHCs staff. Driving factors are the effective authority of the PHCs head, commitment and motivation from government agencies and cross-sectoral support.Conclusions: Implementation of communication contact is influenced by both inhibiting and enabling factors, from the BPJS stakeholders and the members of the BPJS. Achieving the target of communication contact requires synergy of central government policy and BPJS managers.

Service competition in an online duopoly market

Motivated by a recent survey suggesting fast delivery among the most desired features that drive people to shop online, this study aims to investigate service competition in the context of inventory and environmental constraints. We consider a price and service time sensitive market in which two retailers sell substitutable types of products. They compete horizontally for the same group of customers, and they decide independently the service time guaranteed to the consumers. Both retailers adopt stationary base-stock policy. We find that when carbon emissions are not regulated, the choice of service time is closely related to the focus of competition. When price competition intensifies, service competition is de-prioritized, and longer service time is used. When service competition is fierce, service time is reduced for greater market share. However, when carbon emissions are regulated by carbon tax, greater level of price competition leads to shorter service time while higher level of service competition results in longer service time, which is opposite to the unregulated situation. Furthermore, we conclude that simply imposing carbon tax may not bring the expected reduction in carbon emissions if consumers are insensitive to their carbon footprints and willing to absorb the carbon cost for speedy service.

Telemedicine in Transient Phase: Emergence of M-Health Care Services

The fusion of medical science and technology has emerged ‘Telemedicine’ as a new technological platform, for providing healthcare services to the masses residing in rural and remote areas. The government and non-government bodies are striding hard to implement and promote telemedicine across India. Despite of various initiatives, telemedicine is starving to find the place in healthcare service sector. With the emergence of mobile technology, telemedicine has reached in transient phase. The advancement in mobile technology has improved the accessibility of qualitative healthcare among rural masses. The present research work is an attempt to analyze various telemedicine projects undertaken by the government and to highlight the gaps of low popularity and accessibility among the people. The study also suggests mobile-based model for healthcare. The model demonstrates integration of various healthcare services under the common interface based on mobile applications. It also includes patient-doctor interaction interface system, patient monitoring system, e-payment, online pharmacy and pathology. The use of proposed model will not only reduce the cost of healthcare but also facilitate immediate availability of services. The model-based application provides convenient platform for interaction between doctor and patient. The online payment and monitoring system keep track of patient’s economical and health status. The review of various reports and literature reveals that traditional telemedicine practice is passing through transient phase, in which, mobile-based medical applications are replacing traditional practices of healthcare. The findings also reveal the limitations of implementing telemedicine such as delay in response time, low frequency of conducting tele-conferences, lack of infrastructures and lack of awareness among patients. The present study is an attempt to resolve these issues with use of an integrated system for healthcare that can provide low cost, timely and speedy healthcare services. The study concludes that mobile-based applications are real time applications and are more useful as compared to traditional practices in telemedicine services.

Identifying Efficient Ports Under Competition: An Application of Information Based Duration Analysis

Motivated by the recent events and developments in the transshipment industry, this paper studies the applications of information discrepancy measures such as Kullbak-Leilber functions in identifying the ports where container ships could expect to receive efficient and speedy service when little information or a very limited amount of observation is available about the ports and berth periods of previous ships. This paper relies on the search model methodologies developed for duration variables and simulates scenarios under different distributional and structural assumptions, investigating how difference in administration, management, and capacity could lead to the identification of a given port as an efficient one by a liner.

The Implications of Worker Behavior for Staffing Decisions

Restaurant employees adjust their sales efforts and service speed as more tables are filled and the workload increases. A study of five casual-dining restaurants finds that when the overall workload is low, as guest traffic begins to pick up and the restaurant becomes busy, the servers step up their game by redoubling their sales efforts through suggestive selling and upselling. Once the workload hits a certain level, however, the servers dial back on selling, take steps to shorten meal duration, and focus primarily on service speed. This inverted-U relationship between employee workload and performance holds both in terms of the number of tables and diners that a server concurrently handles. One implication of this analysis is that restaurants may be overstaffed because the employees’ extra effort meant their workload threshold was not reached in the restaurants being studied. Because of the phenomenon of increased employee effort, this chain could reduce its staffing level on average of one worker per shift while still achieving higher sales. An estimated 3 percent increase in sales would result from servers’ increased sales efforts, which occur until the trigger point is reached and employees focus only on speedy service. This article is based on a paper presented at the 2013 Quality in Service Conference (QUIS).

P155 Making sense of shades of grey!: Impact of hospice ultrasound use on patient care

BackgroundPatients with advanced disease require transportation to hospital for ultrasound identification of abnormal fluid and location marking. This is not only exhausting, but introduces service delays, increases work for an...

Optimal Price-Lead Time Menus for Queues with Customer Choice: Priorities, Pooling & Strategic Delay

How should a firm design a price-lead time menu and scheduling policy to maximize revenues from heterogeneous time-sensitive customers with private information about their preferences? We consider a queueing system with multiple customer types that differ in two dimensions, their valuations for instant delivery and their delay cost rates. The distinctive feature of our model is that the ranking of customer preferences depends on lead times: patient customers are willing to pay more for long lead times than impatient ones, and vice versa for speedier service. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions, in terms of the capacity, market size, and properties of the valuation-delay cost distribution, for three features of the optimal menu and segmentation: 1. Pooling types with different delay costs into a single class; 2. Pricing out the middle of the delay cost spectrum while serving both ends; and 3. Strategic delay to deliberately inflate lead times.