LOG904-140 Service Industry Logistics (Autumn 2024)

Although the services area was neglected for many years in terms of research and services were seen as a poor and additional feature of products, the service area has gained relevance. It is well recognised that proper supply chain management can lead to competitive advantage. The service industry is no exception. The adoption of lean and/or agile strategies in the service supply chains can lead to least expensive, faster and more flexible provision of services. The nature of the transition between these strategies in the service supply chains and the actions required to become leanner or more agile in specific processes and areas of the supply chain are key challenges service operations managers face. Bottlenecks and service design will be visited as enablers of performance of service supply chains.

During this seminar, students will become familiar with key concepts that will be fundamental to improve supply chain performance in the service context. In doing so, fundamentals of service operations management will be covered, as well as the traditional lean and agile strategies and decoupling points, under the context of the service industry, as well as bottlenecks and service design. Examples from the public sectior will be used to illustrate the topics. Students will analyse a real service case and apply the course content aiming for improvements. Support will be provided to students during the development of their assignment. At the end of the coure, students will produce an oral presentation of their assignment and discuss their proposals.

Knowledge: Students will gain knowledge of operations management in the context of companies in the service industry, specifically in the context of their supply chain and service processes (mapping, strategies, critical points, service design)

Skills: Critical thinking; oral communication skills; teamwork skills

General competence: Be able to analyse a real case under the scope of service operations management

• Form of assessment: Group assignment (report)
• Proportion: 60 %
• Duration: Due date on Thursday at 23:59
• Grouping: Group
• Grading scale: Letter (A - F)
• Support material: materials from class

• Form of assessment: Group presentation and discussion of the report, with individual assessment
• Proportion: 40%
• Duration: 30 minutes (per group) – Friday morning, starting at 9:15.
• Grouping: Individually
• Grading scale: Letter (A - F)
• Support material: materials from class

• Aronsson, H., Abrahamsson, M. and Spens, K. (2011). Developing lean and agile health care supply chains, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 176-183.
• Azaria, S., Ronen, B., Shamir, N. (2023). Justice in Time: a theory of constraints approach. Journal of Operations Management, 1-7. DOI: 10.1002/joom.1234
• Guven-Uslu, P., Chan, H.K., Ijaz, S., Bak, O., Whitlow, B., Kumar, V. (2015). In-depth study of “decoupling point” as a reference model: an application for health service supply chain. Production Planning and Control: The Management of Operations, Vol. 25, No. 13-14, pp. 1107-1117.
• Liu, W., Liang, Z., Yi, Z., Liu, L. (2016). The optimal decision of customer order decoupling point for order insertion scheduling in logistics service supply chain. International Journal of Production Economics, 175, 50-70.
• Rahimnia, F, Moghadasian, M. (2010). Supply chain leagility in professional services: how to apply decoupling point concept in health delivery system. Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, Vol. 15, No. 1, pp. 80-91.
• Tuunanen, T., Salo, M., Li, F. (2023). Modular Service Design of Information Technology-Enabled Services. Journal of Service Research, Vol. 26(2) 270–282
• Wang, Y., Wallace, SS.W., Shen, B., Choi, T-M (2015). Service supply chain management: a review of operational models, European Journal of Operational Research, Vol. 247, pp. 685-698.
• Wikner, J., Yang, B., Yang, Y., Williams, S.J. (2017). Decoupling thinking in service operations: a case in healthcare delivery system design, Production Planning and Control, Vol, 28, N. 5, pp. 387-397.