Service automation

Automation can have particularly significant impact on the performance of service asset s such as management, organization, people, process, knowledge and information. Application s by themselves are a means of automation but their performance can also be improved where they need to be shared between people and process assets. Advances in artificial intelligence, machine learning and rich-media technologies have increased the capabilities of software-based service agents to handle a variety of tasks and interactions.

Automation is considered to improve the utility and warranty of services. It may offer advantages in many areas of opportunity, including the following:

• The capacity of automated resource s can be more easily adjusted in response to variations in demand volumes.
• Automated resources can handle capacity with fewer restrictions on time of access; they can therefore be used to serve demand across time zones and during after hours.
• Automated systems present a good basis for measuring and improving service processes by holding constant the factor of human resources. Conversely, they can be used to measure the differential impact on service quality and costs due to varying levels of knowledge, skills and experience of human resources.
• Many optimization problems such as scheduling, routing and allocation of resources require computing power that is beyond the capacity of human agents.
• Automation is a means for capturing the knowledge required for a service process. Codified knowledge is relatively easy to distribute throughout the organization in a consistent and secure manner. It reduces the depreciation of knowledge when employees move within the organization or permanently leave.

When judiciously applied, the automation of service processes helps improve the quality of service, reduce costs and reduce risk s by reducing complexity and uncertainty, and by efficiently resolving trade-offs. (This is the concept of Pareto efficiency, where the solution or bargain is efficient when one side of the trade-off cannot be better off without making the other side worse off.)

The following are some of the areas where service management can benefit from automation:

• Design and modelling
• Service catalogue
• Pattern recognition and analysis
• Classification, prioritization and routing
• Detection and monitoring
• Optimization.

Demand for services can be captured from simple interactions customers have with items in an automated Service Catalogue. There is a need to hide the complexity in the relationships between customer outcomes and the service asset s that produce them, and present only the information the customers need to specify the utility and warranty needed with respect to any particular outcome. However, customers need choice and flexibility in presenting demand.

It is possible to handle routine service request s with some level of automation. Such requests should be identified, classified and routed to automated units or self-service options. This requires the study of business activity patterns that exist with each customer.

The variation in the performance of individuals with time, workload, motivation and nature of the task at hand can be a disadvantage in many situations. The variation in the knowledge, skills and experience of individuals can lead to variation in the performance of processes. Variations in processing times across service transaction s, jobs or cycles can result in degradation of service level s, usually in the form of delays and congestion (Figure 8.2).

Figure 8.2 Degrading effect of variation in service processes

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14