Defining and categorizing handoff points for the service domain

Abstract

This paper discusses a framework that can be used to characterize the artifact types and their behaviors in the context of hand-off points in processes in the service domain (where human actors play a significant role). This is particular critical to implement lean sigma in services processes which exhibit high proportion of people-to-people interactions and the 'tangible' flow is usually an information or decision artifact. This paper uses an object-attribute relation model to characterize artifacts and annotate their behavior. This approach will enable computing points of inflection for a particular artifact and also the overall complexity of a particular process. The framework enables classification of hand-off points using association rules and are placed in a three dimensional space that uniquely categorizes them based on the process qualifiers, the behavioral aspects and the activity. The process qualifiers, phrases from natural language are used to provide semantic support to the classifiers. The behavior qualifiers are attributes that describe the nature in which the initiator interacts with the information/material handed over. The attributes of the activity classifier will help understand the action and nature of these handoff points. Additionally, the quality of these handoff points can be gauged by coupling the attributes on the behavior axis with those on the quality axis. The method of defining and categorizing handoff points and its utility in creating a hand-off view of value stream mapping for lean sigma is discussed with an example. Copyright © (2008) by the American Society for Engineering Management.