CO URSE SYLLA BUS A ND O UT LINE 1
I SYLLABUS
Course Code | Title:
Lecture Period:
Lecturer & Contact
Details:
Office Hours:
Total Lecture Hours:
Lecture Groups,
Schedules & Rooms:
Course Description:
Learning Objectives:
COPYRIGHT 2017 by Prof. Dr. Peter Goffe. All rights reserved.
1 This edition updates and supersedes the CARE Course Catalog outline in CARE. Subject to change during the semester. Expires July 2017.
SM 110 | Service Operations Management (3 Credits)
06.03.17 30.06.17
Mr. Prof. Dr. Peter GOFFE, p.goffe@iubh.de. Tel.: 02224.960.5228.
Office: Room 1-503. For full, fast answers 24/7 outside of lectures, email
your questions to the lecturer. Same-day response guaranteed.
By appointment Monday/Tuesday before 10:00, excluding Resit Week.
30 hours plus a 60-minute Semester Examination in July 2017.
There are two groups: A and B. Schedules and locations are subject to
change. See CARE. With the lecturers written advance permission, you
may on occasion attend a lecture with a different group from your own.
Service operations management is the planning, organizing, directing and
controlling of all functions designing, resourcing, creating and
performing involved in producing, providing and delivering service
experiences that customers value enough to buy and want to buy again.
The course examines the processes, policies, procedures, standards,
strategies, structures, systems, skills, methods, tools and techniques
service organizations use to plan, prepare, present and perform superior
services efficiently, effectively and sustainably. The course approaches
service operations management less from the traditional cost-cutting and
process perspectives and more from a holistic, integrated and
interdependent organizational-function perspective focused on
sustainably realizing for customers service experiences they value as
superior, buy and want to continue buying.
Your successful completion of the course at a superior level will equip
you to demonstrate competent basic knowledge and understanding of:
the components that constitute the service experience and how to
manage them within an overall service management system;
resource-based operations strategy as applied to services;
service experience design;
capacity management and its relation to operations management;
trends and issues in improving service operations.
Specifically, you will be able to analyze and evaluate service operations.
Furthermore, by applying relevant service operations management tools
you will be able to develop solutions that improve the operations
performance of service organizations. Overall, you will acquire important
service operations management knowledge and skills for managerial
success in the service industry.
 Course Content | Course content will be drawn from the following broad range of topics:
General Scope: 1. The meaning of service operations management
2. Strategic objectives and design choices for:
a. Operations strategy
b. Process management
c. Total quality management
3. Service experience design decisions
a. Designing and delivering services
b. Design of operations networks
c. Job design and work organization
4. Capacity management
a. Capacity planning and scheduling
b. Capacity and customer management
c. Capacity and revenue management
5. Facilities management
a. Front- and back-office facilities management
b. Service location models
c. Managing servicescapes
Learning Resources: The course textbook is Service Operations Management: Improving
Service Delivery (4th Edition), by Robert Johnston, Graham Clark and
Michael Shulver (Pearson, 2012). ISBN: 0273740482. The course will use
approximately 50 per cent of the book. In addition, during the semester
examinable operations-management case studies, discussion questions
and readings are provided in CARE Course Material (CCM).
Learning Strategy: The learning strategy of the course emphasizes engaging in interactive,
seminar-style discussions and exercises focused on critical thinking,
open discussion of course concepts and ideas, case analyses, assigned
reading and other course material. The learning and assessment
strategy assumes regular attendance and participation, close reading
and preparation of all course material and doing the learning exercises.
Learning Assessment & Your learning in the course is formally assessed on a single, 60-minute,
Grading Standards: written Semester Examination (SE) for 100% of your course credit. The
SE specifically tests the extent of your theoretical and practical
knowledge of major course concepts and material, including all reading
and exercise assignments. More details will be announced later. Your
official result depends on the extent to which your answers satisfy the
4C standard: commonsense, correctness, clarity and completeness.
While the SE does not directly measure your language skills, your ability
to express and explain in written English your knowledge, thinking,
judgment and reasoning will affect your result.
Semester Examination: The SE is on all lectures, assigned readings and other course material
for the entire semester. It measures your knowledge of course concepts
and ability to apply that knowledge to real-world situations. Assigned
reading and exercises is examinable whether or not discussed in class. It
is not a primary objective of the lectures to show you how to answer
any particular type of SE question. The type, format and content of the
SE may include strategy-analysis tasks, case analysis, essay tasks, short-
answer tasks, term-matching tasks, or any combination of these.

2017 SS SM110 Course Syllabus and Outline. Updates and supersedes the CARE Course Catalog outline. Page 2 of 4
 Work Requirements: You are required to prepare BEFORE arriving in the classroom all
reading and exercise assignments for that lecture. Assignments are
announced before each class and are due in the following class. Your
primary responsibilities in lectures are active listening and active
participation in discussion of course topics, exercises and cases.
All recording and photography in lectures is forbidden.
IUBH Masters and Bachelors courses have the same quantitative
workload expectations of students. But Masters students must meet
higher qualitative requirements for working independently on, thinking
critically about, discussing, synthesizing and understanding complex
concepts and material. On written exams, the competency they show in
these skills is a factor in their result.
Self-updating You are expected at least once prior to each lecture to access CCM for
Requirement: new content and your CARE mail. Failure to meet this requirement
could put you at risk of being unaware of important course-related
information. During the course, if your CARE access is blocked, you may
request to receive course information at a non-IUBH email address.
Attendance: Attendance at lectures is not mandatory. It is possible to pass the
course without attending any lectures provided you obtain elsewhere
the analytical and critical thinking, imagination, insight and judgment
gained in lectures. Some examinable material is presented and
discussed only in lectures and not provided at any other time or place.
For your benefit if your official attendance record could be useful to
you, the university gives you the opportunity to record your attendance
at each lecture by signing the Attendance List. Your timely signature on
the list is the only valid proof of your attendance. The availability of
personal support from the lecturer for individual students depends on
their proven regular attendance and voluntary in-class participation.
If you are not ready and willing to contribute constructively to the
learning environment of a lecture, you are encouraged not to attend it.
Viewing Your Semester The Examination Office organizes all viewing of written SEs. Students
Examination: wishing to view their SE should not approach the lecturer but must
make an appointment with the Examination Office by the established
deadline. University regulations do not require lecturers to conduct
exam viewing with students. The lecturer provides SE feedback only as
written on each exam, not in personal consultation.
Resits: To take a resit SE, you must first enroll for the course. A resit SE may
not be the same type as your original SE.
Academic Honesty: From your first lecture in the course, you are responsible for knowing
well the IUBH policy on academic honesty, especially regarding cheating
and plagiarism. At IUBH both are regarded as serious academic offences
that risk expulsion from the university. The policy is published in CARE.
The Learning Value of Your in-class participation is not evaluated as a direct factor in your
Discussion course grade. But it strongly affects your understanding of course
Participation: concepts. Not participating may put you at a disadvantage on the exam.
Taking a free ride in class is unfair. It is unfair to enjoy the benefit of
other students preparation and participation if you offer none of your
own. It is also unacceptable for everyone else to have to wait too long
for you to figure out your answer when called on to share it.

2017 SS SM110 Course Syllabus and Outline. Updates and supersedes the CARE Course Catalog outline. Page 3 of 4
 II OUTLINE

LECTURE1 KEY DISCUSSION TOPICS2 READINGS3

PART 1 | ORIENTATION AND CONTEXT: INTRODUCTION TO SERVICE OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT
What are services? The tangible-intangible continuum
What is service? What is a service company? What is service operations?
T: Chs 1, 2
1-2 What is service operations management? What are its challenges?
R1
What is the dominant logic governing operations? Implications and tradeoffs
What is the integration principle of service operations management?
PART 2 | DEVELOPING SERVICE OPERATIONS STRATEGY
What is a service concept?
T: Ch. 3 +
What is a customer experience? Designing the customer experience
3-5 pp. 163-169
What is the Servuction Model and what components does it comprise?
R2
How is service operations management the same as servuction management?
5-6 What is the resource-based perspective of operations? Framework and matrix R3, R4
PART 3 | DESIGNING THE SERVICE PRODUCT
T: 167-180;
7-8 How do SOMs4 design and manage the customer experience/journey?
193-206; R5
How do SOMs design and manage service people (staff and customers)? T: Ch. 10
9-11
What role/s do customers play in service operations? R6, R7, R8
PART 4 | OPERATING THE SERVICE DELIVERY SYSTEM
What is service capacity management and why is it so important to SOMs? T: Ch. 11
12-14
How do SOMs manage service capacity and cope with demand? R9
What is service quality? Managing service performance T: Ch. 5 + pp.
14-16 What is customer complaints management and service recovery? 435-439
What are service guarantees? R: tba
16 Wrap-up + Semester Exam Info Bulletin alert None
SEMESTER EXAMINATION JULY 2017 5

1 See Semester Weeks table below. Lectures start in Week 4. No lectures during Resit Week (08.-12.05.) In some weeks, your
group may have lectures on two days. Subject to change during the semester. Check your CARE schedule regularly for changes.

WEEK 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
STARTS 06.03. 13.03. 20.03. 27.03. 03.04. 10.04. 17.04. 24.04. 01.05.
WEEK 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
STARTS 15.05. 22.05. 29.05. 05.06. 12.06. 19.06. 26.06. 03.07.

2
Lectures and topic discussions are planned to follow this sequence but it may vary. In a particular week, both groups may not
be at exactly the same point in the course.
3
T = Course textbook. R = Required readings available in CCM. More readings may be added later.
R1. A Service Industries Classification
R2. Service Operations Strategy Product
R3. Operations Strategy (Iansiti & Serels)
R4. Resource-Based Operations Strategy Framework and Matrix
R5. The Work of Managing Service Operations Resources
R6. The human factor in service design (DeVine, Lal and Zea)
R7. Using behavioral science to improve the customer experience (DeVine & Gilson)
R8. When Should a Process Be Art, Not Science (Hall & Johnson)
R9. Capacity Management in Service Firms
4
SOMs = Service operations managers
5
Only the Examination Office sets examination dates and officially announces them directly to students.

2017 SS SM110 Course Syllabus and Outline. Updates and supersedes the CARE Course Catalog outline. Page 4 of 4