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Introduction
Schmenner l! argues that, over the years, manufacturers have been unified by their acceptance of a certain terminology to describe generic production processes. Use of these process types has helped to remove the myth that all manufacturing activities and problems are unique. This has facilitated the sharing of ideas and techniques and the development of an understanding of process choice implications on manufacturing strategies. The process typology has also become a powerful tool in the teaching and development of production and operations management 2,3!.
The traditional view has been that the heterogeneity of services means that little communication or learning can take place between different service businesses; as Lovelock 4! states, "Service industries remain dominated by an operations orientation that insists each industry is different". A service typology which transcends narrow industry boundaries may lead to some cross-fertilization of ideas and to an understanding of the management methods and techniques appropriate to each service type. Although many service classification schemes have been proposed before, no categorization has been either as pervasive or as useful as the process type classification provided in the production management literature.
A Review of Service Classifications
Several production/operations authors have in the past applied manufacturing process types to services. The five generic process types, which have become a part of classic production management 2,5,6! are project, jobbing, batch, line and continuous process operations. The model, illustrated in Figure 1, shows how the five types are positioned along the diagonal on a graph where product volume correlates with product mix 5! to which Wild 7! refers as product variety.
Hill 6! identifies the following additional dimensions which characterize the five process types:
* product range
* customer order size
* degree of product change accommodated
* ability of operations to cope with new developments
* orientation of innovation
* performance criterion
* nature of the process technology
* number and expense of set-ups
* control of quality.
Thus, at one extreme, project activities are defined as highly customized, one-off, large-scale and complex activities, such as civil engineering contracts or aerospace programmes. At the other extreme, continuous processing refers to the processing of a basic material, such as petrochemicals, through an automated plant. Between these extremes lie jobbing, batch and line processes....