ABSTRACT
Responsive repairs of existing housing stock is the largest area of spend for most social landlords in the UK (Wickenden, 2012), and balancing their service capacity with unpredictable demand is challenging. The social housing context adds complexity, as service efficiencies need to be balanced against the sector’s regulatory standards for service provision, tenant expectations and commercial considerations. This chapter reports the results of a two-year project with a UK social housing organisation that uncovered the underpinning challenges of managing capacity and demand in a responsive repairs building maintenance unit and suggests research propositions to enable the academic operations management community to increase the impact of future research for public services.
