Title: Overall Cycle time Effectiveness metric for system-level service performance measurement and bottleneck detection

Authors: Kanthi M.N. Muthiah, Samuel H. Huang

Addresses: Intelligent Systems Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Industrial and Nuclear Engineering, University of Cincinnati, 7690 Bandshell Place, Columbus, OH 43235, USA. ' Department of Mechanical, Industrial and Nuclear Engineering, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH 45221-0072, USA

Abstract: Circumstantial evidence suggests that service industries play an important role in the slowdown of the US non-farm multifactor productivity after 1973. Productivity improvements in services are harder to achieve than in goods producing industries. The shift of the US economy towards a larger share of services implies the need for concerted productivity improvement efforts in this sector. What gets measured gets done and improved. However, there is no standard approach to measure service performance as each industry is unique. There have been attempts in the past to measure and improve service productivity, but what is lacking is a systemic approach. This paper addresses this gap and presents the Overall Cycle time Effectiveness (OCE) metric that could be used for system-level cycle time performance monitoring and diagnostics for service systems. It explains the OCE development methodology, validates the developed OCE metrics and demonstrates its bottleneck detection ability using a real-world case study.

Keywords: overall cycle time effectiveness; OCE; service productivity; performance measurement; bottleneck detection; services.

DOI: 10.1504/IJISE.2008.018234

International Journal of Industrial and Systems Engineering, 2008 Vol.3 No.5, pp.594 - 609

Published online: 13 May 2008 *

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