Service Supply Chains (was MRP and Production Planning)

[Ahmet Ilker Soydan ilkersoydan h]

Posted by ""Ahmet Ilker Soydan"" <ilkersoydan@hotmail.com>

On 6th May, 2005, Jean-Jacques Laublé wrote:

"".....But unfortunately
I never saw any model dealing with planning services where there are no
inventories.
...The main difference between service and production, is that as the time
is flowing, the service that is not sold is lost, while the product is still
there in the
inventory. This makes the modelling of service systems completely different
then
production""

I can comment on few things here. In service business, rather than physical
systems,
there may seem to be no inventories - based on operative processes-, but on
certain
circumstances we can define the operative agent ourselves.

Lately, I have heard of a agent based modeling tournament (carried out each
year) which aims at managing the supply chain of a service business. Each
player tries to coordinate (or not), try
to organize a travel program for the customers by negotiating between them.
(for e.g. one deals with hotels, one deals with flight tickets, one deals
with sightseeing places & museums etc.) As you may guess, one depends on
another such as --->if you miss the plane, there is no way to check-in for
the hotel and so on. Like Critical Path Method, if one lags, the other is
affected by this bottleneck. This whole process seemed to me like a ""Service
Chain""

In this case, I think, the purpose is, managing the ""DEADLINES"" for the
customer
and reporting to the next ""supplier"" in the cascaded system. It resembles
Project Dynamics in a sense.

In addition, service business includes more ""soft variables"" than the
classical production-inventory
models. That means they are more vulnerable to human perception and
expectation. That is why,
I believe, in service business, unit of operation is ""information stocks""
rather than physical stocks. However, I agree that there is less research
done here than the other.

I have also heard of some Call-Center projects handled with SD.

I don't know if that was a bit helpful.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ilker SOYDAN

Politecnico di Milano, PhD Student
Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering
Via Giuseppe Colombo 40, 20133, Milano

ilker.soydan@polimi.it
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted by ""Ahmet Ilker Soydan"" <ilkersoydan@hotmail.com>
posting date Fri, 06 May 2005 13:54:07 +0000

[Jean-Jacques Laublé jean-jacques]

Posted by =?iso-8859-1?Q?Jean-Jacques_Laubl=E9?= <jean-jacques.lauble@wanadoo.fr>
Hi Ahmet

Thanks for replying.

You seem to be describing what we call in France a tour operator, who
organizes travels, using subcontractors. It does not deliver the service and
is more then an pure intermediary as it looks for the customers and
organizes the travel. It does not have the fixed costs of the one who
delivers the service. Example: Airline company, hotels.

What I am studying is the one who delivers the service.


The problem that you describe is probably well suited for agent based
modelling as it deals with individualities that can act in a very different
ways depending on the circumstances and is more a discreet problem. It looks
like organizing a factory with delays, queues etc. that is generally solved
with discreet methods, or eventually agent based too.


I have a bit studied agent based methods, but I think that while having the
possibility to solve the problems I am working on, I cannot see any
advantage justifying to switch to them.

Regards.

J.J. Laublé Allocar

Strasbourg France
Posted by =?iso-8859-1?Q?Jean-Jacques_Laubl=E9?= <jean-jacques.lauble@wanadoo.fr>
posting date Sat, 7 May 2005 15:01:51 +0200