To an extent, service, by nature, is intangible. Often, in service, production and consumption occur simultaneously making it impossible to store service as if it were a product. Service delivery can be highly complex and time sensitive. And, customers and suppliers can play changing and sometimes unpredictable roles within the delivery system itself. Many times customer expectations are difficult to identify and, as a result, performance measures are difficult to determine.
These aspects and others present unique challenges to service operations. Yet, in spite of these differences, the approach to defining quality requirements and to problem solving has many similarities within both service and non-service organizations.