STANDARDIZATION OF INFORMAL LABOR OPERATIONS: TRANSFORMING MOVING CREWS INTO STRUCTURED SERVICE UNITS
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Abstract
Moving and relocation is a global industry valued at over 80 billion dollars annually, yet it operates with fewer standardized procedures than virtually any other service sector of comparable size. Manufacturing adopted process maturity models in the 1980s, healthcare followed in the 2000s, and information technology built an entire discipline around service management frameworks. Moving companies, by contrast, remain largely informal: crews receive verbal instructions, quality depends on individual experience, and performance data are rarely collected in any systematic way. This paper proposes the Standardization Maturity Model for Informal Service Operations (SMM-ISO), a four-stage framework (Ad Hoc, Documented, Managed, Optimized) that describes how a moving company progresses from unwritten practices to data-driven service delivery. SMM-ISO was developed and tested through a 12-month longitudinal case study at Easy Moving LLC, a mid-size carrier based in Boston, Massachusetts, where three successive interventions were implemented between March 2024 and February 2025. Integrated performance data show improvements across all tracked indicators: on-time completion went from 81% to 94%, damage claims fell by roughly a third, crew-level resolution of on-site deviations rose from 38% to 67%, and client complaints tied to field operations dropped by 41%. These changes coincided with the interventions but cannot be attributed to them with certainty, given the single-site design. Later interventions depended on the documentation and measurement infrastructure that earlier ones had put in place, which means the order matters. SMM-ISO offers small carriers a workable path toward formalized operations that does not require enterprise-level technology.
How to Cite
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service standardization, process maturity, informal labor, moving industry, organizational change, operational formalization
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