Learning objectives Operations Management
Week 2:
- Be able to create a customer profile
Basically, a Customer Profile is a description of a customer or set of customers that includes
demographic, geographic, and psychographic characteristics, as well as buying patterns,
creditworthiness, and purchase history.
Geographic: Dividing by nations, regions, cities, counties or states.
Demographic: Dividing by age, gender, family size, family life cycle, income, occupation, education,
religion, race, generation and nationality.
Psychographic: Dividing by social classes, lifestyle or personality traits.
Behavioural: Dividing by knowledge, attitudes, uses or responses to a product, such as:
Occasions
Benefits sought
User status
Usage rate
Loyalty status
Through market segmentation companies divide large, heterogeneous markets into smaller segments
that can be reached more efficiently with products and services that match their unique needs.”
Segmentation -> targeting -> positioning
- Understand what operations mean
The activity of managing the resources that create and deliver services and products.
- Recognize the role and the importance of standardization in an operation
Standardization: the degree to which processes, products or services are prevented from
varying over time.
The role: operations sometimes attempt to overcome the cost penalties of high variety by
standardizing their products, services or processes.
Example: clothes that we buy. Although everyone’s body shape is different, garment
manufacturers produce clothes in only a limited number of sizes.
- Understand the impact of customer needs on a service concept
Customers may be an input to many operations but they are also the reason for their
existence. It is critical that operations managers are aware of customer needs. This
information will determine what the operation has to do and how it has to do it, which in
turn defines the service/product offering to be designed, created and delivered.
The success of every company is dependent on its ability to create products and services that
address unmet customer needs.
- Be able to explain what a service concept is
The service concept outlines how a service provider can realize the value and desired
outcomes of its services.
, A service product comprises of all elements of service performance, both tangible and
intangible, that create value for customers.
- Recognize different aspects of a service concept
Service concept design must address the following issues:
› How the different service components are delivered to the customer
› The nature of the customer’s role in those processes
› How long delivery lasts
› The recommended level and style of service to be offered
Week 3:
- Be able to explain a service blueprint, its function and its structure
A service blueprint is a diagram that visualizes the relationships between different service
components — people, props (physical or digital evidence), and processes — that are directly
tied to touchpoints in a specific customer journey.
, Main lanes of a service blueprint:
Physical evidence
Customers actions
Front office
Back office
Supporting processes
Line of interaction
Line of visibility
Line of internal interaction
- Be able to explain and apply input-output model to a process
The inputs represent the flow of data and materials into the process from the outside. The
processing step includes all tasks required to effect a transformation of the inputs. The
outputs are the data and materials flowing out of the transformation process.
Transformed resources are transformed, thus changed, by means of a process. For example:
ingredients + energy (resources) are transformed (e.g. cooked) into a dish.
Transforming resources are the resources needed to perform the process, but which aren’t
transformed themselves, such as people, machines and equipment.
Week 2:
- Be able to create a customer profile
Basically, a Customer Profile is a description of a customer or set of customers that includes
demographic, geographic, and psychographic characteristics, as well as buying patterns,
creditworthiness, and purchase history.
Geographic: Dividing by nations, regions, cities, counties or states.
Demographic: Dividing by age, gender, family size, family life cycle, income, occupation, education,
religion, race, generation and nationality.
Psychographic: Dividing by social classes, lifestyle or personality traits.
Behavioural: Dividing by knowledge, attitudes, uses or responses to a product, such as:
Occasions
Benefits sought
User status
Usage rate
Loyalty status
Through market segmentation companies divide large, heterogeneous markets into smaller segments
that can be reached more efficiently with products and services that match their unique needs.”
Segmentation -> targeting -> positioning
- Understand what operations mean
The activity of managing the resources that create and deliver services and products.
- Recognize the role and the importance of standardization in an operation
Standardization: the degree to which processes, products or services are prevented from
varying over time.
The role: operations sometimes attempt to overcome the cost penalties of high variety by
standardizing their products, services or processes.
Example: clothes that we buy. Although everyone’s body shape is different, garment
manufacturers produce clothes in only a limited number of sizes.
- Understand the impact of customer needs on a service concept
Customers may be an input to many operations but they are also the reason for their
existence. It is critical that operations managers are aware of customer needs. This
information will determine what the operation has to do and how it has to do it, which in
turn defines the service/product offering to be designed, created and delivered.
The success of every company is dependent on its ability to create products and services that
address unmet customer needs.
- Be able to explain what a service concept is
The service concept outlines how a service provider can realize the value and desired
outcomes of its services.
, A service product comprises of all elements of service performance, both tangible and
intangible, that create value for customers.
- Recognize different aspects of a service concept
Service concept design must address the following issues:
› How the different service components are delivered to the customer
› The nature of the customer’s role in those processes
› How long delivery lasts
› The recommended level and style of service to be offered
Week 3:
- Be able to explain a service blueprint, its function and its structure
A service blueprint is a diagram that visualizes the relationships between different service
components — people, props (physical or digital evidence), and processes — that are directly
tied to touchpoints in a specific customer journey.
, Main lanes of a service blueprint:
Physical evidence
Customers actions
Front office
Back office
Supporting processes
Line of interaction
Line of visibility
Line of internal interaction
- Be able to explain and apply input-output model to a process
The inputs represent the flow of data and materials into the process from the outside. The
processing step includes all tasks required to effect a transformation of the inputs. The
outputs are the data and materials flowing out of the transformation process.
Transformed resources are transformed, thus changed, by means of a process. For example:
ingredients + energy (resources) are transformed (e.g. cooked) into a dish.
Transforming resources are the resources needed to perform the process, but which aren’t
transformed themselves, such as people, machines and equipment.
