Concept of service capacity
- Service capacity is the upper limit on load that a service delivery utility can bear without affecting the quality standards.
- Service capacity planning is the process for determining optimal ways to meet the service parameters with reference to present business quality parameters and forecasted parameters.
DETERMINE SERVICE LEVEL REQUIREMENTS
- The management should first decide on the service delivery standards to be met.
- It could be how much time you can deliver a service to the customer, can be set as a target.
- E.g.: Bill payment may take 7 minutes of waiting and 2 minutes of processing.
STUDY THE INBOUND DEMAND
- Inbound demand is the number of people coming in for a particular service.
- It may vary with time periods, days (weekdays or weekends), seasons etc..
- This traffic analysis will help precise capacity planning.
- The basic statistical figures of number of people visiting a service station at different time periods may form the input to mathematical tool calculating the capacity requirement.
EXAMINING THE SERVICE DELIVERY PROCESS
- The process should be analyzed form the angle of increasing the delivery rate by re-engineering the whole process.
- The mathematical tool is the figures such as how many customers served per hour may be enough for planning.
- Implementation of various ways to increase the rate of delivery.
E.g: Use of technology, standardization of process, training the workforce operating at the counter etc…
ANALYSE THE CURRENT SITUATION
- The inbound traffic and service delivery rates are used to calculate the achievable level of service standards and actual service levels that are being experienced by the customer.
- The fluctuations over time have to be analyzed and managed accordingly.
- E.g.: jewelry shops are crowded at the festive times, wedding seasons or akshya trithiya.
PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTING CHANGE
- After the process is analyzed the change in process should be analyzed and implemented.
- This is the stage where the actually changes are implemented.
- E.g.: Extra counters that are functional at the mall on the weekends
REVIEW
- After the above steps are put into action, necessary care should be taken to constantly to update the system to reduce the flaws and increase efficiency.
- Periodic revision of the process helps identify the areas that require improvement and can be improvise.
