MBA (SSME) - AGW 651

Service Management

Case Study : Clean Sweep Inc.

Group Members: Yoong Tuck Seong & Andrew Tan Keng Seang

15th August 2009

Agenda

Clean Sweep Overview

Analysis / Recommendation
Conclusion
Q&A
The End

Objectives
1. Case study concentrates on Service Quality
2. How to define Service Quality?
Dimensions of Service Quality
Service Quality Gap Model

3. How to achieve Service Quality?

Statistical Process Control (SPC)
Cost of Quality
Unconditional Service Guarantee

4. Service Recovery
The systematic-response approach

Clean Sweep Overview

Clean Sweep Inc. (CSI) is a custodial-janitorial services company
that specializes in contract maintenance of office space.
CSI have several major contracts to service some of the state
governments offices.

CSIs Business Strategies

1. Focus only on Janitorial services of office space (competitive service strategies :
Focus)
2. Maintain small workforce, while performing high-quality work at a reasonably rapid
speed.
3. Higher pay range for employees as compared to CSIs competitors

CSIs Nature of Service Act

Direct Recipient of the Service
Nature of
the Service Act

People
Peoples bodies:

Things
Physical possessions:

Tangible actions

Janitorial services

Peoples minds:
Intangible actions

Intangible assets:

Present CSIs Operations

Each crews working hours => 8.5 hour/shift

15 minutes paid rest breaks and 30-minute unpaid lunch break
The cleaning staffs is divided into 4 crews. Each crew are under the a supervisor of a
crew leader.
Individual staff costs are higher, but CSI management believes in greater
productivity levels in a smaller-than-average workforce.

Crews general task (Listed in no order of importance)

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Vacuum carpeted floors

Empty trash cans and place trash in industrial waste hoppers
Dry-mop and buff marble floor
Clean rest rooms
Clean snack bar areas
Dust desk tops

CSIs Current Situation

1. A department of the state government overseeing CSI

Makes periodic random inspections

Rate the cleaning jobs
Also receives any complains about the custodial service from office
workers

2. CSIs contracts renegotiation is several months away. CSIs

management would like to maintain high level of quality to
improve its competitive stance.
3. Problems and concerns voiced out by crew members (medium crew
supervisor)
inequity in crew leaders attitude and performance expectations
lack of opportunities for personal advancement
4. Employee turnover has been fairly high but is still lower than many
other competitors.

Complains of Cleaning Crews

Ratings of Cleaning Crews

Q1: X-bar chart for complaints and plot the average complains for each crew during the
nine-month period. Same for performance ratings. What does this analysis reveal about
the service quality of CSIs crews?

1. To obtain X value, R value, UCL and LCL value

i) Complains of Cleaning Crews

value from variable control chart

constant for sample size of 10

UCL = 1.98 + 0.308 (5) = 3.52

LCL = 1.98 0.308 (5) = 0.44

ii) Ratings of Cleaning Crews

UCL = 6.16 + 0.308 (3.22) = 7.15

LCL = 6.16 0.308 (3.22) = 5.16

10

2. To obtain the average complains and ratings value per crew for each month
i) Complains of Cleaning Crews

ii) Ratings of Cleaning Crews

X-bar chart for average complains for each crew during the nine-month period.

Observation :
1.

Throughout 9 months, each of the 4 crews has 1 occurrence out of the control limit. Crew 1 = 1 occurrences ; Crew 2 =
2 occurrences ; Crew 3 = 4 occurrences and Crew 4 = 3 occurrences

2.

During the 5th month and onwards, Crew 2 and Crew 3 complains are within control limit. While Crew 1 and Crew 4s are
out of control.

3.

The number of complains for each crews is on a decreasing trend. This shows that the customer are complaining less as
they might be more satisfied with CSIs service quality.

Analysis / Recommendation :
1.

Crew 3s number of complain could be higher due to more workload for each crew members as every individual in Crew 3
needs to clean more floor space as compared to the other 3 crews. Crew 3s supervisor has to communicate his / her
expectations and help to prioritize task for his / her crew members based on customers feedback and expectations. The
supervisor can also practice less micro managing to his / her crew members.
1

X-bar chart for average ratings for each crew during the nine-month period.

Observation :
1.

Throughout 9 months, each of the 4 crews has 2 occurrence out of the control limit. Crew 1 = 2 occurrences ; Crew 2 = 2
occurrences ; Crew 3 = 6 occurrences and Crew 4 = 4 occurrences

2.

During the 3trd months rating and beyond, Crew 2s ratings are within control limit. While the other crews are out of control
limit. Crew 4 needs attention from the management to increase the performance rating.

3.

The performance ratings for each crews is on an increasing trend until the 7 th month. Only Crew 4 continued to improve the
performance rating from the 7 th month and beyond.

4.

The overall ratings for all 4 crews was above 5 starting 3 rd month and beyond. This shows that the customers satisfaction
on CSIs service quality is improving.

Analysis / Recommendation :
1.

CSI management has to investigate why the performance rating for Crew 1, 2 and 3 starts decrease after the 7th month.
There is a possibility that the crew members do not understand customers expectation.

2.

CSI management needs to understand their customers expectations and explore how their customer rate the each
1
crews performance rating.

Q2: Discuss possible ways to improve service quality.

a) Achieving Service Quality

Statistical Process Control

Cost of Quality
Unconditional Service Guarantee

Costs of control (Costs of

conformance)

Cost of Quality
Cost of Quality

Definition

CSI

Prevention

Cost arise from efforts to keep

defects from occurring at all

1.

2.

3.

Detection

Cost arise from detecting

defects through inspection,
test, audit

1.

2.

Internal Failure

Cost incurred from defects

caught internally and dealt
with by discarding or repairing
the defective items

1.

2.

External Failure

Cost incurred from defects

that actually reach customers

1. Negative word-of-mouth
2. Loss of future business

Costs of failure of control

(Costs of nonconformance)

Training program for cleaning staff

Improve communication and cleaning skills
share best practices
standardize cleaning procedures
Recruitment and selection
Select experienced staff
Quality improvement projects
Deming PDCA
DMAIC

Supervision
Standardize level of supervision / detection
Crew members treated equally across 4 crews
Third-party audit
Fresh ideas and other feedbacks
Walk-through-audit (Service managers lose sensitivity
due to familiarity)
3. Peer review (refereeing)
subject matter expert
4. Customer comment card
feedback to further improve service
understand customers requirement and expectations
Rework
Repeat cleaning process
Machine downtime
Cleaning machine failure

Feigenbaum, Armand V. (1991), Total Quality Control (3 ed.), New York, New York: McGraw-Hill, p. 111, ISBN 9780071126120, OCLC 71640975

b) Service recovery Approach

- Systematic-response approach
1. Identify critical failure points (depends on urgency)
2. Ensure that the information obtained is the latest or updated
3. Determine appropriate recovery criteria
4. Plan type of response
reference from (T.C. Johnson and M.A. Hewa, Fixing Service Failures, Industrial Marketing Management 26, 1997,pp. 54-62)

Dimension CSI

c) Service Quality Dimensions

Constantly perform the guaranteed level of services reliably and accurately
Reliability
On time
Consistence
Without errors

Responsiveness

Must be willing to assist customers promptly

Needs to be swift to work on customers requests.

Assurance

Competent to perform cleaning service

Be polite and respect every customer
Efficiently converse with customers

Empathy

Approachable, sensitive and ability to understand customers needs

Tangibles

To show evidence of care and detailed cleaning are exhibited

Q3. Describe some potential strategies for reducing CSIs staffing problems.

Analysis
1. Crew 1 and Crew 4 has the least number of inequity complains and no advancement feedback.
2. Crew 1s and Crew 4s performance rating is one of the highest among the 4 crews.
3. While Crew 4s number of customer complains is among the lowest among the 4 crews.
Recommendation
1. The management can organize more trainings to enable Crew 1 and Crew 4 to share their best practice with Crew 2 and 3.
2. CSI management can deploy job rotations for each individuals to different buildings or different crews. This can help to
minimize the employees from getting bored of their present job and also experience different customers expectations.
3. The management has to standardize the level of supervision. It is reported that supervisor of Crew 1 and Crew 4 are the
least strict. This could be the reason why Crew 1 and 4 are performing better than Crew 2 and 3.
4. CSI management can promote the Best Employee of the Month award. The winner of the award can be given a one day
leave or be bestowed with cash incentives to further motivate their employees to be more hard-working and go beyond their
daily cleaning routine job.

Service Quality Gap Model

Customer
Perceptions
Managing the
Evidence

Customer Satisfaction
GAP 5

Customer
Expectations

Customer /
Marketing Research
GAP 1

Communication
GAP 4

Understanding
the Customer

Management
Perceptions
of Customer
Expectations

Service
Delivery
Conformance
GAP 3

Conformance

Gap 5
Cleaning Satisfaction Survey
Gap 1
Walk through audit
Gap 2
Poka-Yoke
Taguchi Method
Gap 3
Cost of Quality
SPC
Unconditional Service Guarantee

Design GAP 2

Service
Standards

Service Design

Gap 4
Service Recovery

Conclusion
1. CSI management needs to be pro-active in improving the present service quality by
Understanding customers expectation and experience

explore how their customer rate the each crews performance rating (each
individuals experience and expectation are very subjective or different)
Motivate the crew members through incentives (monetary or a days leave)
Standardizing level of supervision all employees treated equally and with
respect
Measuring the quality of work through random audits or Walk-through-audit

Publish on high ratings

2. CSI managements can arrange a meeting with the department that oversees
custodial service contracts to discuss on potential improvement plans. This approach
can reflect CSIs commitment for continually commitment and improvement in
providing the best custodial-janitorial service.
3. Besides creating a niche in the custodial-janitorial service, CSI can further diversify
their business portfolio to household cleaning.

Q&A

The End