Exploration of Internal Service Systems Using Lean Principles
Essay by people • June 27, 2011 • Essay • 352 Words (2 Pages) • 1,941 Views
Essay Preview: Exploration of Internal Service Systems Using Lean Principles
Any organization, whether it is classified as a manufacturing, service, non-profit, or
government entity, includes a number of internal professional service units that
ultimately affect its long term performance. Each unit provides one or more services to
internal customers, or to external customers, or to both. Examples of such units include
marketing, research and development, engineering, information technology, human
resources, and consumer affairs. Regardless of the organization's size, almost all
professional staff members deliver an internal service, as either their primary or
secondary job function. A manager or staff member whose department's primary
customer is internal would deliver an internal service as his or her primary job
function. Examples include a product designer whose customers include
manufacturing engineers; a marketing manager whose customers include product
designers; and a financial analyst whose customers include corporate executives. But
other personnel whose customers are external (e.g., consumers) also perform services
for internal customers. For example, managers perform annual performance
evaluations of their staff, customer service personnel report to appropriate.departments on the types of complaints received from consumers, and manufacturing
supervisors take part in continuous improvement efforts.
The effect that these internal service systems have on the organization's overall
performance is often difficult to quantify precisely. For example, it would be difficult to
measure the impact of a marketing department not identifying a potentially lucrative
opportunity to sell the company's product since the lost opportunity may not be readily
apparent. Further, given the diverse sets of activities that take place in an internal
service system, their design and management would appear to be a challenge. The
term transformation has been used to describe the process that takes place when a
system converts inputs to outputs (Chase et al., 1998, p. 7). While a manufacturing
organization is strictly devoted to creating physical
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