Service quality programme developments and lean management aspects: a multi-case study

Alan D. Smith

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2010, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-23

Abstract: For an overall effective strategy, companies must think about the long term based on the factors that help them avoid making frequent, costly changes to their strategy. Operational effectiveness in terms of quality assurance, coupled with consistent output, may be the method to survive the current financial crisis. This paper will inspect and document, from an operational management viewpoint, how three unique service-orientated organisations comprising both service and manufacturing sectors (an electrical utility, an automobile parts supplier and a cable/information provider) manage quality, specifically within the unique functions of the organisation: human resources, investor relations and finance. These aspects will be viewed through the lens of the recent financial crisis that has hit the global marketplace, beginning with the general situation, and then managing quality company-wide, managing quality within specific financial business functions, and the impact of the current credit crisis in terms of managing quality. The first section of this paper will examine the concepts of organisation quality via Six Sigma Programme (SSP) development and lean manufacturing principles as a precursor to the case studies in order to lay down the foundations for comparative analysis among the firms studied.

Keywords: case study; customer behaviour; customer relationship management; CRM; lean management; operational effectiveness; six sigma processes; strategy; quality improvement; service quality; quality management; human resources; investor relations; finance; lean manufacturing. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=33141 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijsoma:v:7:y:2010:i:1:p:1-23

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Services and Operations Management from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().