MGMT 4625

Spring 2016
4/19/16
Case Study #2 Commuter Cleaning

1. Prepare a service blue print for Commuter Cleaning

Physical Bag Location Accuracy of Bill Clean

Evidence
Place Take Make Pick up
shirts Bag to payment shirts
Customer
in bag Station

Line of interaction -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pay at
pickup
Transit Station Attach
Customer Service color- Sort shirts
Representative coded Invoice for pickup
label

Line of Visibility ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Deliver bags to Credit Pick up shirts

Driver cleaning facility card and distribute

Office Customer Bill customer

Service Rep.

Line of Internal Interaction ------------------------------------------------------------------

Large Dry Cleaning Load on truck

Facility Count shirts and Clean according to
record for billing shirts location of pick up
2. Identify at least 3 potential fail points (failures) in the service design (blueprint),

and make suggestions for improvements in these potential fail points.

The first potential fail point could be the hours of operation (6:00am to 9:00am),

and (5:00pm to 8:30pm). I would extend the morning hours of operation till at least 11

am, just to accommodate any customer that is running late, or may even have the day off

and wants to sleep in but still needs to pick up their dry cleaning that day.

The second potential fail point is the second shift delivery driver timeframe. That

driver’s shift is from 3:30pm till 5:00 pm, but I don’t think that they should still be

delivering any clothing at 5:00pm. The drivers should be done with all their deliveries by

4:00pm so that the station customer service representative has adequate time to sort shirts

for pick up and have everything ready for the customers who get off work at 5:00pm and

want to pick up their garments. By making the second shift delivery driver’s route from

3:30-5:00pm to say 2:30-4:00pm would allow room for error, and or traffic, since they

are delivering in a city.

The third potential fail point is having so many different employees perform all

these tasks that could easily be consolidated into one or two employees max. Instead of

having a separate delivery driver, I would make the station customer service

representative the delivery driver for drop off and pick up. This would allow for 1 or 2

full time workers instead of 4 or more part time workers. I would also find workers
whom are not college students, since you might have a better retention rate and increased

reliability by hiring someone looking for full time work/unskilled career.

3. What general (generic) approach (es) to service system design is (are) used by

Commuter Cleaning? Present and explain.

The general approach used by Commuter Cleaning is the Production Line

approach. By using this approach, Commuter Cleaning would be able to benefit from the

economies of scale of mass production. They’ll also be able to provide low cost delivery,

cost savings due to the large volume of business being done with the dry cleaning facility,

and consistent delivery since it’s a very standardized process.

4. What competitive advantages does the service design offer? Explain.

The advantage of this service design is that it will provide business professionals

an affordable dry cleaning service that is on their way to work. By using the Production

line approach, the service delivery system can be separated into high and low contact

operations. High contact operations include collecting information from the customer,

explaining the benefits of the services, and signing up the new customer as a member.

Low contact operations for this service are the standardized processes such as drop off

and pick up, and billing for the service. All of this allows management to separate tasks

and improve performance in each area, which then ultimately provides a better, more

efficient, cost effective service to the customer.