The moment of truth-that instant when consumers experience and judge service quality-is often a deciding factor in business success. Designing Service Excellence: People and Technology provides practical information on the design, management, and organization of many different types of service industries, such as hotels, restaurants, banks and financial institutions, retail, and the public sector. The authors investigate the consumers' experience and judgment on service quality, which ultimately determines the success or failure of the service. They then consider people, usability, and technology in the automation of high-quality service. This research-driven book identifies service-in a variety of forms-as an area of business and management where rapid change is taking place. The authors examine how service has become a balance between people and technology and explore this relationship as one of the key drivers of change. They discuss how social, cultural, and technological developments influence the ways in which customers contact, negotiate, and purchase services from their chosen service providers. These same developments are also driving communications between customers relating to the services they buy and are willing to recommend to others (or otherwise). Intermingled, these features of our current-day lives have changed the nature of service provision and service use. When your organization has its moment of truth, how will it measure up? Organizations whose business has service at its core and whose activities focus mainly on service design, management, and delivery are likely to find increasingly that, for survival, service is a matter of life or death. This book provides a deep understanding of the relationship between people and technology along with an ergonomic approach to the design and management of service delivery that helps you deliver the value and benefits that customers not only want, but increasingly come to expect.

First published two decades ago, the first edition of Handbook of Control Room Design and Ergonomics: A Perspective for the Future became a benchmark for the field. Current-day process control encompasses a new generation of computer systems with enormous capabilities, including new display technologies. These new and emerging technologies integrated with human factors create an interconnectivity that enhances organizational development. This new edition of the handbook addresses developments in the concept of "Control Rooms". It includes modern approaches that emphasize the role of people in learning for self-development and in shaping their work environments. New in the Second Edition: Extensive coverage of the use of the control room and its related computer system outside the work of monitoring and supervising the processes Discussion and explanation of how the control room can also be used for the purposes of education and simulation training Discussion of the use of the control system for optimizing and developing the existing systems and processes A section on new ideas and philosophies about organizational design and job design as these are applied to control room related work Proposed organizational designs of the future Theoretical background about learning, learning in the workplace, and lifelong learning Creativity and learning are rapidly becoming integral parts of the design of work environments and work processes and utilize the ICT potential of modern control systems. Using original case studies, the authors describe and illustrate some creative and exciting organizational designs of the future, including new perspectives learning, learning in the workplace, and lifelong learning. Taking a holistic view, they make a strong argument for integrating in the workplace of the new control cent

First published two decades ago, the first edition of Handbook of Control Room Design and Ergonomics: A Perspective for the Future became a benchmark for the field. Current-day process control encompasses a new generation of computer systems with enormous capabilities, including new display technologies. These new and emerging technologies integrated with human factors create an interconnectivity that enhances organizational development. This new edition of the handbook addresses developments in the concept of "Control Rooms". It includes modern approaches that emphasize the role of people in learning for self-development and in shaping their work environments. New in the Second Edition: Extensive coverage of the use of the control room and its related computer system outside the work of monitoring and supervising the processes Discussion and explanation of how the control room can also be used for the purposes of education and simulation training Discussion of the use of the control system for optimizing and developing the existing systems and processes A section on new ideas and philosophies about organizational design and job design as these are applied to control room related work Proposed organizational designs of the future Theoretical background about learning, learning in the workplace, and lifelong learning Creativity and learning are rapidly becoming integral parts of the design of work environments and work processes and utilize the ICT potential of modern control systems. Using original case studies, the authors describe and illustrate some creative and exciting organizational designs of the future, including new perspectives learning, learning in the workplace, and lifelong learning. Taking a holistic view, they make a strong argument for integrating in the workplace of the new control cent

The moment of truth-that instant when consumers experience and judge service quality-is often a deciding factor in business success. Designing Service Excellence: People and Technology provides practical information on the design, management, and organization of many different types of service industries, such as hotels, restaurants, banks and financial institutions, retail, and the public sector. The authors investigate the consumers' experience and judgment on service quality, which ultimately determines the success or failure of the service. They then consider people, usability, and technology in the automation of high-quality service. This research-driven book identifies service-in a variety of forms-as an area of business and management where rapid change is taking place. The authors examine how service has become a balance between people and technology and explore this relationship as one of the key drivers of change. They discuss how social, cultural, and technological developments influence the ways in which customers contact, negotiate, and purchase services from their chosen service providers. These same developments are also driving communications between customers relating to the services they buy and are willing to recommend to others (or otherwise). Intermingled, these features of our current-day lives have changed the nature of service provision and service use. When your organization has its moment of truth, how will it measure up? Organizations whose business has service at its core and whose activities focus mainly on service design, management, and delivery are likely to find increasingly that, for survival, service is a matter of life or death. This book provides a deep understanding of the relationship between people and technology along with an ergonomic approach to the design and management of service delivery that helps you deliver the value and benefits that customers not only want, but increasingly come to expect.