In defense of the production-line approach to service

David E. Bowen, William E. Youngdahl

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

1 Scopus citations

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 languageEnglish (US)
Pages1531-1533
Number of pages3
StatePublished - 1998
Externally publishedYes
EventProceedings of the 1997 Annual Meeting of the Decision Sciences Institute. Part 1 (of 3) - San Diego, CA, USA
Duration: Nov 22 1997Nov 25 1997

Other

OtherProceedings of the 1997 Annual Meeting of the Decision Sciences Institute. Part 1 (of 3)
CitySan Diego, CA, USA
Period11/22/9711/25/97

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Management Information Systems
  • Hardware and Architecture

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