Morris A. Cohen and Marshall L. Fisher, Co-Directors

Contact: Maya K. Lea, Associate Director
               (215) 898-3516
               f-dc@wharton.upenn.edu
               517 Jon M. Huntsman Hall
               The Wharton School
               University of Pennsylvania
               Philadelphia, PA 19104-6340

Website: http://grace.wharton.upenn.edu/fd/

Mission Statement

Consumers today care little about the distinction between manufacturing and service. They simply want their specific needs to be fulfilled through a combination of physical goods, intangible services, and information. Further, they want these throughout the lifecycle of product acquisition, use, and disposal. This has blurred the traditional distinction between manufacturing and service firms. Today's companies must provide what the customer needs, and frequently that is a bundle of goods and services.

Manufacturing enterprises throughout the world have undergone a transformation from producing standard products (often low-cost, high-volume) to supplying a wide array of quality products to meet specific customer needs. At the same time they have come to recognize that production and delivery of "service products" associated with the after-sales support of their manufactured products can provide them with opportunities to grow revenue and increase profit. In the delivery of such after-sales service, too, there are pressures to enhance customization and flexibility. These transformations have been fueled by information technologies that support automation, connectivity, coordination, and responsiveness in the value network of processes that connect firms to their customers and their suppliers. These trends continue to accelerate with the growth of electronic commerce and its impact on all aspects of the value network.

The Fishman-Davidson Center for Service and Operations Management seeks to provide a solid research and teaching foundation that addresses the operations issues of firms that inhabit this new world. It does so through a portfolio of activities that include industry-sponsored research partnerships, a management forum to promote the exchange of information between faculty and practicing managers, as well as a variety of research projects coupled with focused workshops to disseminate the results of that research.

A major goal of the Center is to develop strong links between theory and practice. To achieve this goal, the Center has created a board of industry partners who provide financial support, have input into the choice of research problems, and serve as a test bed for implementation of specific solutions generated through the Center's research activities. Recent partner-funded research includes projects carried out at Intel, McKinsey, Procter & Gamble, Caterpillar, the US Navy, Jones Apparel Group and Federated Department Stores. We are also integrating the results of this research and the lessons learned from practice into our educational curriculum. In this way industry partners help to focus the research projects of Wharton faculty, influencing the course of research and teaching in the field.