©2006 Thomson Learning, Inc. South-Western

Possible Solutions to Service Operation Problems• Production-lining

the whole system

• Creating Flexible capacity

• Increasing customer participation

• Moving the time of demand

©2006 Thomson Learning, Inc. South-Western

Service Blueprints

• Blueprints provide a means of communication between operations and marketing and can highlight potential problems on paper before they occur.– essentially a flowchart that

shows lines visibility

©2006 Thomson Learning, Inc. South-Western

Figure 6.1 Blueprint for Cafeteria-Style Restaurant

©2006 Thomson Learning, Inc. South-Western

• Identify direction in which processes flow

• Identify the time it takes to move from one process to the next

• Identify the costs involved with each process step

• Identify the amount of inventory build-up at each step

• Identify the bottlenecks in the system

Components of a Service Blueprints