Simulation-Based Application to Service Systems
1. During the last two decades, the service industry has shown a remarkable growth in various aspects of national and international economies. Service companies, including banking, the food industry, health systems, telecommunication, transportation, and insurance, play a major role in today’s market.
2. As a result, many techniques, analytical methods, and software tools were developed to help design service systems, to solve operational problems, and to optimize their performance.
3. Both six-sigma and simulation modeling have been widely used in service systems applications. 3S applications can therefore include banks, fast-food restaurants, computer systems, clinics, traffic, airports, post offices, and many other service systems. This can include internal business operations such as product development processes, financial transactions, and information flow.
4. 3S projects can be used to study system behavior, quantify the service provided, compare proposed alternatives, and set up and configure the system to provide the best performance possible.
Elements of Service Systems:
Like manufacturing systems, service systems provide one or more services to entities (e.g., customers) through resources and operations. Entities are routed through a sequence of processing operations or stations at which system resources such as employees or automatic processing machines provide the service required. Basic elements that are modeled and tracked in any service system include:
1) System entities: Customers (humans) represent the entity in many service systems. Customers arrive at the service system, request the service, receive the service, and departure the service system. For example, customers arrive at a bank and request the kind of service they wish to do, other types of entities in addition to customers can also be part of a service system. Examples include paperwork in a governmental office, insurance claims in an insurance company, calls in a call center, and information bytes in a computer system.
2) Service providers:Entities in a service system arrive at the service center, request the service, and wait in front of service providers. Service providers are the resources through which the service requested is provided. Examples include waitresses in a restaurant, window tellers in a fast-food restaurant, bank tellers in a bank, doctors and nurses in a clinic, customs officers at a border-crossing terminal, and receptionists.
The capacity of service providers determines the service time (time that a customer spends during service) and affects the waiting time (time that customers wait to get to the service providers).
3) Customer service:Most service systems include a mean for customer service through which complaints and feedback from customers are received and analyzed. Free of charge phone numbers, centers of customer service, and a Web site for customer feedback are the major forms of customer service in service systems. In retail stores, customer service allows shoppers to return or replace merchandise, helps customers find merchandise, and reports direct feedback to store management.
4) Staff and human resources:Staff, business managers, and customer service associates are key building blocks that contribute greatly to the success or failure of a service system. Most service systems rely on people to provide services. For example, hospital doctors and nurses play the major role in providing medical services. Bank tellers, calling officers, and receptionists are other examples.
5) Facility layout and physical structure:The layout and physical structure of the service facility have a special importance in service systems. Designing the facility layout in an effective manner that assists both service providers and customers is often critical to the performance of the service system. Certain requirements and codes must be met when designing a service facility.
6) Operating policies:Operating policies are also a key component in any service system. Operation pattern (open and close hours), routing customers, flow of each service, queue and service discipline, and departure rules are examples of operating policies.
