Abstract
The desirability of transferring manufacturing logic and practices to service operations, strongly advocated by Levitt (1972; 1976) two decades ago, is now commonly challenged by both service researchers and practitioners. We defend a `production-line approach to service' by arguing that services can `reindustrialize' by applying revised, progressive manufacturing technologies. We describe how a `lean' production-line approach to service has been adopted by services businesses such as Taco Bell and Southwest Airlines. Overall, services tend to be innovation laggards, compared to manufacturing. Even employs empowerment, considered a critical success factor in services is more widely practiced in manufacturing. Looking ahead, mass customization can be viewed as the convergence of service and manufacturing logic.
Original language | English (US) |
---|---|
Pages | 1531-1533 |
Number of pages | 3 |
State | Published - 1998 |
Externally published | Yes |
Event | Proceedings of the 1997 Annual Meeting of the Decision Sciences Institute. Part 1 (of 3) - San Diego, CA, USA Duration: Nov 22 1997 → Nov 25 1997 |
Other
Other | Proceedings of the 1997 Annual Meeting of the Decision Sciences Institute. Part 1 (of 3) |
---|---|
City | San Diego, CA, USA |
Period | 11/22/97 → 11/25/97 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Management Information Systems
- Hardware and Architecture