We develop a framework for combining strategic benchmarking with efficiency benchmarking of the services offered by bank branches. In particular, a cascade of efficiency benchmarking models is developed guided by the service-profit chain. Three models---based on the nonparametric technique of...

Regulators of utilities that operate as local monopolies would like to set prices or allow rates of return based upon the quality of a utility's service. However, quality is highly multidimensional. Traditionally, regulators have collected measures of quality on many separate dimensions, and...

In this paper, we study the contracting issues in an outsourcing supply chain consisting of a user company and a call center that does outsourcing work for the user company. We model the call center as a G/G/s queue with customer abandonment. Each call has a revenue potential, and we model the...

Recent operations management papers model customers as solving multiarmed bandit problems, positing that consumers use a particular heuristic when choosing among suppliers. These papers then analyze the resulting competition among suppliers and mathematically characterize the equilibrium...

Delivering high quality service during the service encounter is central to competitive advantage in service organizations. However, achieving such high quality while controlling for costs is a major challenge for service managers. The purpose of this paper is to present an approach for...

Does cross-training workers allow a firm to achieve economies of scale when there is variability in the content of work, or does it create a workforce that performs many tasks with consistent mediocrity? To address this question we integrate a model of a stochastic service system with models for...

A Bayesian network (BN) is a probabilistic graphical model that represents a set of variables and their probabilistic dependencies. Formally, BNs are directed acyclic graphs whose nodes represent variables, and whose arcs encode the conditional dependencies among the variables. Nodes can...

Service contracts are the natural method to set bilateral commitments. In transport service context, public authorities and transport operators have different goals, therefore regulation plays an important role especially failing competition. After a brief description of the most important...

In this paper, passenger willingness-to-pay (WTP) for improving the quality levels of a bus service is examined. Specifically, the objective of this research is to provide a tool for evaluating passenger willingness-to-pay by considering some qualitative service aspects, in addition to the...