onsider the following summary of issues reported in a travel agency.

A travel agency has recently lost several medium-sized and large corporate customers due to complaints about poor customer service. The management team of the travel agency decided to appoint a team of analysts to address this problem. The team gathered data by conducting interviews and surveys with current and past corporate customers and also by gathering customer feedback data that the travel agency has recorded over time.

About 2 % of customers complained about errors that had been made in their bookings. In one occasion, a customer had requested a change to a flight booking. The travel agent wrote an e-mail to the customer suggesting that the change had been made and attached a modified travel itinerary. However, it later turned out that the modified booking had not been confirmed in the flight reservation system. As a result, the customer was not allowed to board the flight and this led to a series of severe inconveniences for the customer.

Similar problems had occurred when booking a flight initially: the customer had asked for certain dates, but the fight tickets had been issued for different dates. Additionally, customers complained of the long times it took to get responses to their requests for quotes and itineraries. In most cases, employees of the travel agency replied to requests for quotes within 2–4 working hours, but in the case of some complicated itinerary requests (about 10 % of the requests), it took them up to 2 days. Finally, about 5 % of customers also complained that the travel agents did not find the best flight connections and prices for them. These customers essentially stated that they had found better itineraries and prices on the Web by searching by themselves.

Which business processes should the travel agency improve?

For each of the business processes you identified above, indicate which performance measure should the travel agency improve.

Question 2

Consider the process model given in Figure 3.8 (Dumas et al, 2013, p. 73). Calculate the cycle time under the following assumptions:

Each task in the process takes 1 hour on average.

In 40 % of the cases the order contains only Amsterdam products.

In 40 % of the cases it contains only Hamburg products.

In 20 % of the cases it contains products from both warehouses.

Question 3

Draw a diagram which illustrates the difference between a multi-line queue and a single-line queue.

Question 4

Consider the travel agency process described in Question 1. Assume you will simulate the module using some simulation software such as BIMP.

Construct a list of possible inputs? Provide rationale for the inclusion of each input.

Classify any probability distributions according to their type (e.g. fixed, exponential and normal). Provide reasons for their classification.