A proposed model for assessing service quality in small machining and industrial maintenance companies

Abstract

Machining and industrial maintenance services include repair (corrective maintenance) of equipments, activities involving the assembly-disassembly of equipments, fault diagnosis, machining operations, forming operations, welding processes, assembly and test of equipments. This article proposes a model for assessing the quality of services provided by small machining and industrial maintenance companies, since there is a gap in the literature regarding this issue and because the importance of small service companies in socio-economic development of the country. The model is an adaptation of the SERVQUAL instrument and the criteria determining the quality of services are designed according to the service cycle of a typical small machining and industrial maintenance company. In this sense, the Moments of Truth have been considered in the preparation of two separate questionnaires. The first questionnaire contains 24 statements that reflect the expectations of customers, and the second one contains 24 statements that measure perceptions of service performance. An additional item was included in each questionnaire to assess, respectively, the overall expectation about the services and the overall company performance. Therefore, it is a model that considers the interfaces of the client/supplier relationship, the peculiarities of the machining and industrial maintenance service sector and the company size.