Applying lean enterprise principles to optimize delivery of customer service

Many companies have realized significant value through the application of lean principles to manufacturing and supply chain operations. Dell Inc. in particular garnered international fame for its ability to manufacture and deliver computers using a lean, direct-to-customer approach that provided a tremendous competitive advantage. The Author suggests that these same lean principles can be applied to improve a firm's service and support operations, while acknowledging some important nuances of applying lean in a customer service environment. The Author calls to light a key differentiator between lean manufacturing and lean customer service. Specifically, while customers use relatively consistent value systems to assess manufacturing operations, different customer segments typically value customer service in very different ways. Thus, lean customer service must begin by thoroughly characterizing the value expectations and contributions of each customer segment. After characterizing these value systems, a firm must design a support channel architecture aligned with the value exchange system of the entire customer population. After designing a lean channel architecture, lean principles may be tactically applied to optimize performance within individual channels. This research project focused on improving customer service operations at Dell by using lean principles to: 1. Establish a data-driven, strategic architecture for Dell's consumer support division and 2. Identify operational improvement opportunities to drive the tactical execution of that strategy. The project began with a benchmarking study of customer service strategies at companies such as Best Buy, Apple, Fed-Ex, Amazon.com, GM, and Comcast.

Department dc:contributor.department

Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2008

Author dc:creator

• McClellan, Hannah Elizabeth

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Deborah J. Nightingale and Stephen C. Graves.

• Sloan School of Management.
• Engineering Systems Division.
• Leaders for Manufacturing Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/44296

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/44296