GBA BUS363 Group-Based Assignment: Analysis and Recommendations for Improving Taxi Services in Singa

Question 1: Analysis of Service Blueprinting and Customer Feedback

IntroductionThe objective of this GBA is for students to practisethe knowledge and skills learnt in BUS363 and work effectively in a team.In land scarce Singapore, taxi service is a way for passengers to travel comfortably while minimising congestion on the road. Taxi service has evolved over the years. Facing more competition from other transport services, there is a needfor taxi companies to keep improving its service quality to survive in the constantly changing transportation market.In this project, assume that your group is a team of Quality Management Consultants. Select a taxi company operating in Singapore. If itis part of a conglomerate, you need to focus only on its taxi business. You are contracted by this taxi company to analyse its operations and recommend improvements to its service quality.Your group’s research may include websites, field studies, personal/work experience and public domain resources. You are required to acknowledge all sources of information in the reference page.Your group must demonstratewritten proficiency by producing a written report of not more than 13 pages (including diagrams, but excluding the cover page, and the reference list) in Microsoft Word 2013 or later (*.docx) format, with Times New Roman font of size 12 and single line spacing. Key illustrations and diagrams should be shown in the main report. Your report must addressthe following questions in sequence.

Question 1(a)Analysehow Service Blueprinting can be used by a taxi company to provide customers a high quality twenty-minute taxi ride after it was hailed from the street.You must explain all steps in developing the service blueprint, identify two (2)potential fail points and show the resultant diagram(b)Provide information on your selected taxi company (thereafter called the “Company” in this document but you must use its actual name in your report), including its registered name, office address and website address if exist. Identify its key customers, suppliers, subcontractors and competitors. Compareany two (2) approaches the Company uses and one (1)approach it does not or rarely use to gather the Voice of the Customers for its taxi services. Your discussion shall cover a mix of actively and passively solicited customer feedbacks.Rank the approaches in terms of suitability for the Company. Explain the reasons for your ranking) BUS363Group-based AssignmentQuestion 2Many transportation companies consider driverless vehicles to be the next strategic technology. For example, Uber has tried to develop driverless cars. Even Singapore’s Economic Development Board (EDB) has funded a start-up company to develop driverless vehicles. Coupled with advanced 5G Wireless Networks, Driverless Taxi Service can offer many benefits to customers.Assume you are the CEO of a technology start-up company approached by the Company to develop a DriverlessTaxi Systemwhich includes the driverless vehicles and related items.Note:Many companies package products with services as a system to serve customers. For example, Apple offers iPhone with iTunes services as an entertainment system, and IBM sells computers with software customisation services as an IT system. Similarly, the Driverless Taxi System that you develop shall include taxi vehicle (the product) and the necessary items to allow the Company to offer transportation service to its customers.(a)Examine three (3)shortcomings of the current Taxi services and operations (excluding those discussed in Question 1(a)). Propose one requirement (can be from the perspectives of passengers, the Company or society) for the Driverless Taxi System to overcomeeach current shortcoming. Interpret this requirement as a PZ&B’s service quality dimension. (Note: You are not allowed to use the same dimension for different requirements)

)(b) Plan a Quality Function Deployment to translateeach requirement identified in Question 2(a)into a design element (hence, there will be three elements). You must first explainhow the design elements will meet the requirements. Then execute the QFD in steps, compare the relationship between the items, decide the various ratings, calculate the weights and factors. Finally, construct a House of Quality and provide recommendationsbased on the final rankings of the design ele