{"id":9562,"date":"2011-12-08T05:17:16","date_gmt":"2011-12-08T11:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/?p=9562"},"modified":"2014-10-15T15:02:47","modified_gmt":"2014-10-15T20:02:47","slug":"first-bag-on-the-belt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/first-bag-on-the-belt\/9562\/","title":{"rendered":"First Bag on the Belt and the Service Level Agreement"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"a296a24fa2fc69ef5487857f02f111e8\" data-index=\"9\" style=\"float: none; margin:10px 0 10px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Single Post readerboard -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:728px;height:90px\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-8207522353004717\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1144967431\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<p>We&#8217;re pleased to have James Lawther share his thoughts today on Service Excellence. He does this through a recent family vacation to Spain, where he, his wife, and kids experienced the all-wonderful joys of international travel with kids and, of course, 15 luggage bags.<\/p>\n<p>As can be expected, our readers as well as our article contributors are of the international flavor. This means, of course, that some of what you&#8217;ll read today might seem misspelled. But don&#8217;t worry, that&#8217;s just James&#8217; inferior non-American English coming out (just joking).<\/p>\n<p>Thanks James and to all our international readers and contributors.<\/p>\n<p>Read more about James Lawther after his article.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>Picture the scene<\/h2>\n<p>I had just spent two weeks in Spain on holiday with my wife and young children and was on the homeward bound leg, experiencing the joy of international travel:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I&#8217;d stood in a <a title=\"articles and applications on queueing theory\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/queueing-theory\/\">check in queue<\/a>, with my bored children<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;d stood in an oversize baggage queue with my fractious children<\/li>\n<li><a title=\"the psychology of waiting lines especially with bored kids\" href=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/queueing-theory-part-4\/195\/\">I&#8217;d stood in a security queue<\/a> with my vocal children<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;d stood in an emigration queue, with my obnoxious children<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;d stood in a boarding queue, with my fighting children<\/li>\n<li>I&#8217;d stood in an immigration queue, with my sulking children<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>All that was standing between me and a short ride home to a cup of tea (and the opportunity to dump my children in front of the TV) was the baggage reclaim queue.<\/p>\n<p>Nearly there<\/p>\n<p>I just had to wait for my luggage on the carousel<\/p>\n<p>I have been here before; my expectations were not set high<\/p>\n<p>To my amazement as I walked up to the carousel the belt started, things were looking up, then, even better, one of my bags circled round, I grabbed it, maybe that well earned cup of tea was going to materialise far faster than I thought<\/p>\n<p>May be the children would shut up<\/p>\n<p>May be my wife would stop looking at me like it was my fault<\/p>\n<p>Then the belt stopped<\/p>\n<p>It had delivered precisely 5 bags, one of them was mine<\/p>\n<p>The others weren&#8217;t<\/p>\n<p>After 25 minutes it finally started up again and looking like Sherpa Dad with 15 bags I set off to find my car.<\/p>\n<h2>What is going on?<\/h2>\n<p>What sort of operational system does that to a customer?\u00a0 Starts working the instant they want it to, then stops, stone cold dead, finally delivering the goods half an hour later to a man who has lost the will to live?<\/p>\n<p>Now, I can&#8217;t swear this to be the case, but I will lay a bet.<\/p>\n<p>I bet it is all to do with targets and incentives.<\/p>\n<p>The airline has a service level agreement with the baggage handling company.<\/p>\n<p>It says something like:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The first item of customer baggage from each plane must be on the carousel within 5 minutes of the plane landing\u009d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There are stiff financial penalties associated with non compliance.<\/p>\n<p>To avoid these severe financial penalties the baggage handling company has a crack team of baggage handlers (a small fast bloke and a big strong bloke).<\/p>\n<p>The minute the plane lands the small bloke launches himself into the hold and throws out 5 bags.\u00a0 The big chap then manhandles these into a wheel barrow and sprints across the tarmac to deposit them on the luggage belt.<\/p>\n<p>Job done the rest of the crew wander up and eventually the bags appear.<\/p>\n<p>I may be a little off with the exact details, but I stand by my bet.\u00a0 Do you want to take it?<\/p>\n<h2>So what can be learnt?<\/h2>\n<ol>\n<li>If you apply a big enough incentive you will get the outcome you asked for<\/li>\n<li>Often the outcome you asked for is not what you really wanted<\/li>\n<li>Your management dashboard will tell you your service level agreements are being met, everything is great<\/li>\n<li>Everything is not great<\/li>\n<li>There is no substitute for going and looking at what is actually happening<\/li>\n<li>There is no substitute for going and looking at what is actually happening<\/li>\n<li>(I know I just said that, it is the important bit)<\/li>\n<li>Finally, if you are fit, strong and handy with a wheelbarrow there are lots of job openings in the UK&#8217;s major airports.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<hr \/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-9563\" title=\"james-lawther-service-excellence\" src=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/james-lawther-service-excellence.jpg\" alt=\"james lawther service improvement\" width=\"188\" height=\"269\" srcset=\"https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/james-lawther-service-excellence.jpg 314w, https:\/\/staging.opexlearning.com\/resources\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/james-lawther-service-excellence-210x300.jpg 210w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 188px) 100vw, 188px\" \/>James Lawther gets upset by operations that don&#8217;t work and apoplectic about poor customer service.<\/p>\n<p>James has worked for numerous large manufacturing, retail and service companies including Unilever, Mars and Capital One a variety of operational improvement roles. He also ran his own operations improvement consultancy where his clients were as diverse as local and national government, debt collectors and magic circle lawyers.<\/p>\n<p>He is currently head of Operational Excellence for a FTSE 100 insurance company.<\/p>\n<p>Visit his web site The Squawk Point\u009d to find out more about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.squawkpoint.com\/2011\/05\/simple-minded-people-give-the-best-service\/\">service improvement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<!--CusAds0-->\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;re pleased to have James Lawther share his thoughts today on Service Excellence. He does this through a recent family vacation to Spain, where he, his wife, and kids experienced the all-wonderful joys of international travel with kids and, of course, 15 luggage bags. As can be expected, our readers as well as our article [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12327,"featured_media":9563,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[613],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Service Level Agreement: First Bag on the Belt<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"James Lawther, shares his thoughts on service excellence taken from his recent trip to Spain and service level 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