IAMOT 2011 Pre-Conference Tutorials and Workshops
Service Industry: Strategic Differentiation and Operational Excellence
Date: Sunday April 10, 2011
Time and Duration: 9:00 am - 12:00 Noon
Instructor: Dr. C. M. Chang
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering
State University of New York at Buffalo
Buffalo, New York, 14260 USA
Email: cmchang@buffalo.edu
Description
As the service sectors play an increasingly important role in both developed and developing economies, engineers and service professionals are well advised to become prepared with the knowledge and skills needed to enhance the strategic differentiation and operational excellence of their service enterprises. This tutorial offers a specific pathway to generate creative ideas, select the profitable ones to pursue, justify projects financially, manage development projects of innovative services, reach out to customers, and support service customers. Examples of achieving operational excellence are illustrated by standardizing work processes, enhancing quality and time-to-market (e.g., applying tools, such as Lean Six Sigma, Value stream mapping, quality assurance, FMEA, web-based enablers and SOA-based emerging productivity tools) involving staff based on the profit-chain model, seeking productivity utilizing emerging technology, and adopting and constantly improving known best practices. This tutorial summarizes the key skills and knowledge in a Three Decker framework comprising of engineering management, business management and service leadership, cumulating in a "Take Charge" model. After attending this tutorial, participants will know how to focus their efforts on selected activities to maximize their contributions in creating strategic differentiation and operational excellence for their service employers.
Who Would Attend?
Academics, industrial technologists, as well as engineers from large companies who would like to explore what it takes to contribute effectively to the success of service enterprises.
The Instructor
Carl Chang is President of CChang. LLC, an engineering management consulting firm specialized in product/service development, creativity and innovation, and project management. He was with Praxair for 25 years and is now on the faculty of State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York. He served for a brief period of time as the Director of the Service Systems Engineering degree program at its Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering. He is the author of "Engineering Management: Challenges in the New Millennium" (Pearson Prentice Hall, 2005), which won the "Best Book Award 2007" of IAMOT, and was translated into Korean. His new book entitled "Service Systems Management and Engineering: Creating Strategic Differentiation and Operational Excellence," (John Wiley, 2010) forms the basis of this tutorial. Dr. Chang received the "Person of the Year Award" from Technical Societies on the Niagara Frontier in 1986, has five (5) US patents to his credit, and is listed in "Who's Who in Science and Engineering," "Who's Who in America," and "Who's Who in the World." He is a licensed Professional Engineer and holds a Ph.D. degree in engineering from the Technological University Aachen, Germany and an MBA in General Management from University at Buffalo, USA.
