Search

Service Productivity Management is an in-depth guide to using the most powerful available benchmarking technique to improve service organization performance - Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). (1) It outlines the use of DEA as a benchmarking technique. (2) It identifies high costs service units. (3) It isolates specific changes to each service unit to elevate their performance to the best practice services level providing high quality service at low cost. (4) And most important, it guides the improvement process. The discussion and methods are all supported by case-study applications to organizations that have sought and have successfully improved its performance. The techniques discussed in the book are accessible to any and all managers with access to Microsoft® Excel spreadsheet software (Excel).

The second edition of this book has been written for the same audience as the first edition. It is designed to be a'first port of call'for people wishing to study efficiency and productivity analysis. The book provides an accessible introduction to the four principal methods involved: econometric estimation of average response models; index numbers; data envelopment analysis (DEA); and stochastic firontier analysis (SFA). For each method, we provide a detailed introduction to the basic concepts, give some simple numerical examples, discuss some of the more important extensions to the basic methods, and provide references for further reading. In addition, we provide a number of detailed empirical applications using real-world data. The book can be used as a textbook or as a reference text. As a textbook, it probably contains too much material to cover in a single semester, so most instructors will want to design a course around a subset of chapters. For example, Chapter 2 is devoted to a review of production economics and could probably be skipped in a course for graduate economics majors. However, it should prove useful to undergraduate students and those doing a major in another field, such as business management or health studies.