BLUEPRINTING A SERVICE - DEVELOPING A MULTILEVEL SERVICE PROCESS CHART

In this project we describe four recognized techniques for blueprinting a service process (see Ekholm & Wrange 1996a). In Ekholm & Wrange (1996b) we evaluate the techniques and develop a first level of a Multilevel Service Process Chart (MSPC). A pharmacy service - delivering medicine upon prescription - is used as a case study. Features from all of the four techniques, Service Blueprinting (Shostack), Service Mapping (Kingman-Brundage), SADT (The Structured Analysis and Design Technique) (Congram & Epelman) and Multilevel Mapping (Norling) are used. Developing the MSPC we found that; 1) additionally to Shostack's line of visibility a line of observation is needed, 2) the labels used by Epelman & Congram in the SADT-model are very useful when mapping a service process and, 3) a multilevel technique is inevitable in order to fully grasp the details in a service process and visualize them.