Improving the Competitiveness of “Service Department – Consumer Air Conditioner” by Re-engineering
A “Submitted Project Outline” is attached for your reference (with some amendment highlight in RED). This Submitted Project Outline is approved but the content of
Project still can be amended.
A copy of “Chapter 1 for Supply Chain” is attached for your reference.
Professor’s requirement:
1. New Title: “Providing high quality services in Air Conditioner Industry by Business Process Management – A Case Study”
2.1. Write “Chapter 1 – Introduction” first.
2.2. Plus “a customized case study research framework”, this is similar to Figure 3.3.
3. Chapter 1.1, Project background
3.1. Pls include changes in the last ten years in Air Conditioner Service Industry. You may consider:
a) Plenty of new brands appear in the market – Midea, Haier, GLEE …
b) Most of the famous brand employs China (or other Asia Country) A/C factory for OEM, like, Carrier, York, General, Mitsubishi …
c) Quality of air con decreases in the recent year (maybe due to the fact of OEM in China …).
d) Product life cycles of air con are shorter.
d) Models change rapidly (say, change every 2 years), hence, hard to keep shock for spare parts because of so many different models.
e) Any other changes in the industry.
(Note: No need to treat all the above items is a must, some of them are form my own experience)
3.2. Describe how service department operate in daily operation.
(e.g., receive service calls, arrange service appointment with customer, allocation of technician manpower, and prepare spare parts/tools for repair …)
Pls include a “Typical Process Workflow for daily operation of service department”, similar to Figure 1.1.
3.3. Mention different kinds of air con: Light Commercial System & Room Air-Conditioner, Window Unit, and Split Unit …
3.4. Mention that air con would have normal wear and tear, not cold, water leakage, noisy, break down …, and therefore, customers require checking/inspection and/or
repair services.
4. In Chapter 1.2, Problem Statement, you may consider (during peak season):
a) Wait for long time to have someone answer service call
b) Wait for long time to have technician visit the premises
c) Service job cannot be completed in one visit, need 2 to 3 visits to finish (service quality is not good enough)
d) Not all popular use spare parts are available in stock, sometime need to pay extra charge for parts delivery by air, otherwise, have to wait long time for the
arrival of parts
e) Technician will not explain the reason of fault to customer and then leave, even customer ask
f) Customer Relationship Management skill is not up to standard
5. In Chapter 1.3, Problem Objectives, pls include:
“To design a customized case study research framework for collecting primary data from the Service Department of Consumer Air Conditioners at Carrier Hong Kong. With
this research design, it will be possible to analyze key business processes and consequently identify strategic ways in which those processes can be reengineered so as
to increase the competitiveness of the department…” or similar.
6. In Chapter 1.4, Chapter Layout, this is similar to “Chapter 1 for Supply Chain”.
6.1 For item (v) (p.8 of Supply Chain), pls include:
“Analysis of the Competitiveness of the Service Department at Carrier. It will analyse the situations of department with respect to the company in general and also the
Whole Air Conditioner Industry.” or similar.
7.
Chapter 7 – Discussion of Results
Chapter 8 – Conclusion
Chapter 9 – Recommendations
