Complex Service Systems Research Articles

Introduction to the Special Section on the 2013 Naples Forum on Service: From Traditional Pillars to Future Research Avenues

The Naples Forum on Service was held for the third time in June 2013 on the charming island of Ischia, which served once again as an inspiring and constructive research setting. One hundred fifty participants from more than 25 countries engaged in cross-cutting discussions with only limited opportunities for presentations, which, coupled with the diverse cultural backgrounds of the scientists, allowed for debates and conversations to find shared research paths. We are grateful to Service Science for the opportunity presented by this special section, and we are convinced that service science itself may benefit by multicultural perspectives. Service science is the study of complex service systems. Such a simple and straightforward definition opens up many intriguing issues given the ample set of disciplines, research methods (Gummesson 2005), cultural domains, and areas of interest required to capture the powerful insights and essence of service in the technological settings of modern life (Maglio 2011, Maglio and Spohrer 2008). Despite this shared and multifaceted concept, more effort must be invested by researchers outside the traditional disciplines of operations research and industrial engineering. To this end, the Naples Forum may contribute to development of service science, providing different perspectives that address the same issues from marketing, design, systems thinking, and other directions (for a full view of the forum scientific background and discussions, see http://www.naplesforumonservice.it). Service research started 40 years ago, and it is only now that we are beginning to sense the full picture of our economies as complex networks of service systems with a mission to enhance value for consumers, citizens, businesses, and society as a whole (Gummesson and Mele 2010, Gummesson and Polese 2009, Mele and Polese 2010, Wieland et al. 2012). The Naples Forum is an effort to stimulate the development of a new marketing paradigm (Golinelli et al. 2012, Gummesson et al. 2010) that is based on service science (Maglio et al. 2011; Spohrer et al. 2007, 2008), network and systems thinking (Badinelli et al. 2012; Barile et al. 2012a, b; Mele et al. 2010; Polese et al. 2009), and service-dominant logic (Lusch and Vargo 2006, 2014; Vargo and Lusch 2008); in stimulating this development, the new paradigm’s progress can be communicated and made more efficient. The forum supports publication by inviting participants to publish their presented work in special sections and issues of journals; for this special section of Service Science, we have selected some of the most interesting papers. In the first article, “When Trust Makes It Worse—Rating Agencies as Disembedded Service Systems in the U.S. Financial Crisis,” Helge Lobler argues against the common explanation of the recent U.S. financial crisis—namely, the lack of a system perspective—and instead focuses on individual and organizational moral or legal responsibility, thus proposing a richer view in which trust is a question of enabling cooperation among social systems. The second article is by Katarina Wetter-Edman, Daniela Sangiorgi, Bo Edvardsson, Stefan Holmlid, Christian Gronroos, and Tuuli Mattelmaki; “Design for Value Co-Creation: Exploring Synergies Between Design for Service and Service Logic” connects Service Logic research, which provides a framework to understand service systems in action by focusing on how actors integrate resources to co-create value, with practice and research in Design for Service, which provides an approach and tools to analyze current service systems in context to imagine future service systems and how innovation may develop as a result of reconfigurations of resources and actors.

Value network analysis for complex service systems: a case study on Taiwan’s mobile application services

This paper aims to develop a service value network analysis approach based on system dynamics (SD) for analyzing the feedback structures that causes dynamic behavior of service value networks for value co-creation. The proposed approach defines the network objectives, identifies network actors and their interactions, builds SD models, conducts model tests, and evaluates possible policies that can be used to enhance the overall network performance. A case study of Taiwan’s mobile application services is used to illustrate the developed methodology. The developed methodology can help managers represent complex interactions and feedback structures of the service systems for value co-creation. In addition, decision makers can use the models to evaluate alternative scenarios for better understanding the system behavior that can improve the policy design and evaluation. Finally, we recommend that the case company should sense the market development of mobile application services continuously and improve its service quality on both user and developer sides relentlessly for sustaining its market growth.

Editorial Column—Smart Service Systems

Last year, the National Science Foundation (NSF) created a limited funding opportunity for joint university– industry research in the area of smart service systems, fitting new technologies into complex service systems in real-world applications.1 This opportunity aims more at translational research than at basic research, more at moving from discovery to practice than at discovery itself. The initial round of proposals were due in January 2014, and a second round is expected to be due in January 2015. And there are now other NSF opportunities for basic research in creating resilient service systems as well.2 It is exciting to see the NSF beginning to fund research in complex service systems—in service science. Yet this development raises some fundamental questions: What is a service system? What does it mean for a service system to be smart? And what kinds of science and engineering are required to create effective, efficient, and smart service systems? I will touch briefly on these questions here, but in the long run, I expect Service Science will continue to define the field and to provide answers to these and many more questions.

Air Cargo Demand Modeling and Prediction

The air cargo transportation system is a large and complex service system, in which demand forecasting is a key element in the master planning process. Demand forecasting is essential for analyzing existing cargo flight schedules and identifying future facility requirements of air cargo companies. We use the Potluck Problem approach to propose a multiproducer/multiconsumer solution for predicting the cargo demand of a specific airline in a given route, and the cargo load factor for a given flight schedule on that route. This solution considers each airline as a producer and the users of air cargo services as consumers, with a producer having no explicit communication with other producers/airlines. The model analyzes the existing cargo capacity plan, highlights drawbacks, and proposes a new capacity plan to demonstrate the effectiveness of using the solution. Examples are provided to illustrate the efficacy of the approach.

Modelling and optimisation of healthcare systems: an overview

Healthcare systems are complex service systems having multifarious objectives. Healthcare managers have to minimise the overall cost for delivery of healthcare, but not at the expense of quality of care. With the current scenario of increasing cost of healthcare due to newer technologies and increased demand, it has become a real challenge for any healthcare system to provide quality care within resource and budget constraints. The quality resources need to be utilised in an optimal way with the establishment of appropriate healthcare planning and organisation. This paper presents an overview of the applications of operational research tools for modelling and optimisation of healthcare systems in relation to a number of important issues like facility location and layout, capacity planning, inventory control, resource, staff, and appointment scheduling, etc. The modelling approaches are classified and briefly reviewed so as to provide guidance to researchers and practitioners for their application to specific problems in healthcare systems.

Standards for Engineering Services

New standards are needed to codify recent developments in thinking and emerging best practice in engineering services: those collaborative technical and engineering activities that contribute to a business service that is enabled by keeping complex, long-life engineering assets operational at minimum cost. Such services are illustrated by the engineering involved in what have been called “complex service systems” or “product-service systems” and need the engineering activity and resource to be integrated with the overall service provision eco-system. This means that engineers and engineering have a critical role to play within the overall service delivery system displaying new, integrated behaviors and complementary competencies to support the service paradigm. To support successful service outcomes, this requires a very different set of behaviors and processes to those prevalent in the traditional arcane and transactional approach of systems engineering or physical asset management. A new framework standard is proposed, together with guidance on the application of relevant existing process and technical standards, to support the build of best practice and innovation in this area of interest to servitized and servitizing manufacturers.

Editorial Column—An Open Letter to Reviewers

This year, January–October 2013, Service Science received 60 original submissions and 21 revised submissions. Since taking on the editor-in-chief role, I have relied on a great many others, volunteers who have given their time and expertise to help evaluate these submissions. Of course, I am talking about the reviewers and the editorial board. Writing a review is a commitment, and sometimes it is a chore. But a good review makes my job easier, and overall, I have been fortunate to receive good reviews from good reviewers. This year, we received reports from more than 150 reviewers. Now, it is time to take stock and acknowledge all who have helped. Those who reviewed for Service Science in 2013 are listed in this issue, along with the current advisory and editorial boards. I thank them all sincerely. The Service Science website1 offers some advice for writing a good review, including “be constructive” and “be specific” (for additional advice, see also Roedigger 2007). There is nothing wrong with such advice—it is good advice—but it is generic and would hold true for any review and any journal. But I guess I like to think that Service Science is not just any journal. It does not aim mainly to reflect new extensions to an existing body of knowledge but to define a new body of knowledge and a new discipline (Maglio 2013, Qiu 2012). There is no single method or set of methods that all papers in Service Science must follow. There is no single theory or model that should underlie all work. Service Science aims to represent the cutting edge of service research. And so I think I owe it to reviewers to provide some specific guidance, including how to think about and evaluate our particular brand of interdisciplinary work. Here goes. As a field, service science aims to understand, improve, and innovate complex service systems, which may require methods and theories from disciplines including, but not limited to, operations, industrial engineering, marketing, computer science, psychology, information systems, and design (Ostrom et al. 2010, Spohrer and Maglio 2010). As a journal, Service Science documents empirical, modeling, and theoretical studies of complex service systems, relying on approaches from many different disciplines (see Maglio 2013, Qiu 2012). Two of my favorite articles from Service Science concern simulation and modeling but take very broad perspectives, incorporating findings from multiple disciplines: Park et al. (2012) and Qiu (2009). The article by Robin Qiu was selected by the editorial board to receive the 2013 Best Article Award for Service Science, which was presented by the INFORMS Service Science Section at the annual meeting in Minneapolis this year. It is clear that interdisciplinary work is valued. Yet combining multiple disciplines in a single journal—in a single paper, even—makes judging quality hard. It makes reviewing hard. Reviewers should be both constructive and critical, telling authors and editors mainly what is good about a paper and what could be improved. For interdisciplinary papers, reviewers should focus on the parts they can evaluate rather than on the parts they cannot. Because articles need not follow a set pattern, and many methods may be appropriate, reviewers should not focus on their favorite method or their favorite theory and evaluate the whole paper from a single viewpoint. Reviewers should consider what they do not know to be possibly interesting, rather than probably wrong. The field of service science is young. The journal Service Science exists to cultivate the field, to help it grow and thrive. What we publish ought to be correct, empirically grounded, and innovative, and it should lead the way to a new discipline. To do this, we have to look for reasons to publish papers, rather than reasons not to publish papers. We have to nurture good ideas and interesting work. We have to take calculated risks. We have to be open to new approaches and new combinations of old ones. We have to look past our individual biases and toward a future in which Service Science the journal has defined service science the field.

Research on Integrated and Comprehensive Service System of Operation and Maintenance of Petrochemical Units

In order to realize the goal of one-stop operation service in the petrochemical industry, according to the integrated device operation and maintenance mode of the domestic large and complex petrochemical industry units, integrated and comprehensive service system of operation and maintenance of petrochemical units is designed. Three subsystems of operation and maintenance management, preventive maintenance, maintenance emergency response are designed into an integrated and comprehensive service system. The system has the characteristics of being integrated, open, easy to extend and maintain. The system is developed and implemented in the petrochemical corporation and has a good prospect of application.

Introduction: queueing systems special issue on queueing systems with abandonments

The investigation of queueing systems with impatient customers has a long history in queueing theory, with the now standard Erlang-A model going back at least to Palm’s classic 1957 paper. Despite this long record of work, focus on systems with abandonments has been rekindled due to recent interest in analyzing complex service systems, most notably large call centers. Interestingly, this new surge of work has been motivated both by applied and theoretical advances. In the applied realm, very large call centers are now an important component in many industrial sectors and advanced call management software enables the use of sophisticated algorithms in operating these centers. On the more theoretical side, there have been great advances in approximating large queueing systems with abandonments via many-server asymptotics and related diffusion approximations. Furthermore, there have been numerous advances in the understanding of flexible server models with abandonments, which serve as models for systems with “cross-trained” agents. Techniques from revenue management, game theory, and stochastic optimization have also been applied to the operation of such systems. In addition, queueing systems with impatient customers also have a rich connection with perishable inventory and organ transplantation systems. Thus the requirements of practitioners, and the myriad new tools of theoreticians, have motivated this focused issue on stochastic systems with abandonments. This special issue actually consists of nine papers, eight of which appear together here. Due to a publishing error, one of the papers, by Baris Ata and Mustafa H.

Firefly algorithm in optimization of queueing systems

Abstract. Queueing theory provides methods for analysis of complex service systems in computer systems, communications, transportation networks and manufacturing. It incorporates Markovian systems with exponential service times and a Poisson arrival process. Two queueing systems with losses are also briefly characterized. The article describes firefly algorithm, which is successfully used for optimization of these queueing systems. The results of experiments performed for selected queueing systems have been also presented.

Reducing the fear of crime in a community as a complex service system: The case of London Borough of Sutton

Reducing the fear of crime in a community as a complex service system: The case of London Borough of Sutton

Viable service systems and decision making in service management

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to highlight how systems thinking contributes to decision making in uncertain contexts that are characteristic of service systems. Based on the assumption that service systems face complex conditions, the paper posits that systems thinking may support the understanding of key issues in service management.Design/methodology/approachThis paper proposes an interpretation of complexity in the context of service systems, which highlights the perspective change that occurs when a systems approach is adopted. The offered conceptual perspective is then brought to an operational level, in spite of the complexity of the decisions driving a viable system, by modelling a service system as a network of agents, resources, processes and decisions through the use of fuzzy logic. The paper reviews service management research streams, and takes a deeper look at the concepts of service systems and complex service systems. The paper then proceeds to discuss how systems thinking contributes to service management by proposing a systems interpretation of complexity.FindingsService management theories and models may be enhanced by integrating prevailing approaches, based on a quantitative and mechanistic view of service systems dynamics, with systems thinking‐based meta‐models that can be used in better understanding service exchanges. The findings of the paper also show how the integration of an engineering approach can be insightful to the understanding of service systems; adopting a Viable Systems Approach (VSA) as a meta‐model can be useful in fully comprehending market behaviour in uncertain conditions.Originality/valueThe originality of this paper lies in exploring the contribution of systems thinking, in particular of the Viable Systems Approach (VSA), to service management and decision making.

Understanding complex service systems through different lenses: An overview

Summary The 2011 Grand Challenge in Service conference aimed to explore, analyse and evaluate complex service systems. A case scenario, improving the perception of safety in the London Borough of Sutton, provided a common context to link participant contributions. The key themes that emerged included value co-creation, systems and networks, technology, and complexity. Contributions on value co-creation were based mainly on empirical research and provided a variety of insights, including the importance of a better understanding of collaboration within value co-creation. Contributions on the systems perspective included efforts to understand the implications of the interactions within service systems, as well as their interactions with social systems. Contributions within the technological sphere were focused on the creation of new value constellations and demand fulfilment through hybrid offerings of physical assets, information and people. Contributions on complexity focused on the challenges in understanding, managing and analysing these complex service systems. The theoretical and applied contributions all demonstrated the importance of better understanding service for the future.

The enactment of socially embedded service systems: Fear and resourcing in the London Borough of Sutton

Summary Recognising the importance of value-creating systems in action is vital for understanding how value is co-created through resource integration and mutual service provision. Value-creating systems are inherently dynamic and grounded in on-going human action. This article adopts structuration and enactment theory to enhance insights into how complex systems enable value co-creation. The concept of embeddedness (structural, cultural, political and cognitive) clarifies the duality of complex service system structures, in which behaviour and structure are intertwined through a process of socialisation. Actors in a complex service system act on the surrounding context and interpret the contextual responses of their actions through a sense-making process. The sense-making process then influences an actor’s mental models of the value that has been co-created, which implies a complex service system that has been socially constructed through negotiation and consensually validated through its own enactment. This study applies the framework to a case setting focused on fear of crime in the London Borough of Sutton.

Reflections on service systems boundaries: A viable systems perspective: The case of the London Borough of Sutton

Summary The aim of this paper is to propose a systems interpretation of the concept of complexity and its implications for a theoretical discussion of the concept of boundary in complex service systems. The proposal highlights the interpretative contribution of a dual perspective of observation that distinguishes between a structure-based view and a systems-based view. When dealing with complexity, the phenomenon under investigation cannot be addressed through management approaches that aim to measure and control it in a vain attempt to find the best solution. Due to the inner nature of complexity, a more rewarding approach to a full understanding of problematic situations should place consolidated management models within a more general interpretation framework that suggests preliminary insights about the real nature of the investigated phenomenon. First, this paper outlines the theoretical background of the literature on service, service systems and complex service systems, providing evidence of the contribution of recent service research advances such as service science and service-dominant logic. Next, the paper focuses on the basic principles of systems thinking to introduce the Viable Systems Approach (vSa) as a general framework of reference for both the investigation and the governance of social organisations. The vSa conceptual framework is adopted for proposing some reflections from a systems perspective in the investigation of the case of the London Borough of Sutton (LBS). The focus is on interpreting the paradoxical situation of an increased fear of crime among LBS residents despite the evidence of reduction in the crime rate. Although the incidence has fallen for most types of crimes, a recent poll confirmed that crime is still rated as the most important issue for residents. Therefore, improving safety and reducing crime remain the top priorities for the Safer Sutton Partnership Service. In short, this study proposes to consider “reducing the fear of crime in a community” as a complex service system.

On modeling value constellations to understand complex service system interactions

Summary Urban centers face complex challenges in managing their services to continually improve their citizens’ quality of life. They also face complex challenges in managing citizens’ perceptions of the effectiveness of services to continually improve their resulting quality of life. We view urban areas as dynamic sociocultural systems, meaning that effectively and dynamically understanding and addressing their challenges means confronting the full complexity of factors that interact to make up the system. More precisely, we understand these systems to be complex service systems, arrangements of multiple entities and stakeholders that interact to co-create value. Decision makers of urban centers face the design problem of arranging the entities so that the most mutual value emerges from their interactions. To analyze and understand such complex systems, we suggest a new approach to service system analysis based on model composition to design and evaluate stakeholder relationships through what-if scenarios. Applied to the intriguing real-world scenario of crime and perceptions of crime in the London Borough of Sutton, we show how service system analysis — analyzing value constellations to find opportunities for reconfiguring roles and relationships that unlock value — can be applied to a sociocultural service system by focusing on the complex relationship among components that can influence complex questions, such as safety and quality-of-community. Modeling and simulating the value constellations of complex service systems can help us discover which interventions and reconfigurations will be effective and which will not.

Service Science

Service comprise of socio-technical (human and technological) factors which exchange various resources and competencies. Service networks are used to transfer resources and competencies, yet they remain an underexplored and ‘invisible’ infrastructure. Service networks become increasingly complex when technology is implemented to execute specific service processes. This ultimately adds to the complexity of a service environment, making it one of the most difficult environments to examine and manage. In addition, although the emerging paradigm of ‘Service Science’ calls for more theoretical focus on understanding complex service systems, few efforts have surfaced which apply a new theoretical lens on understanding the underlying trajectories of socio-technical dynamics within a service system. This paper presents a literature review on Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and discusses how it may be employed to examine the socio-technical nature of service networks. ANT offers a rich vocabulary to describe the interplay of socio-technical dynamics which influence the service system reconfiguration. Thus, this paper offers a discussion on how ANT may be employed to examine the complexity of service systems and service innovation.

Healthcare Information Network Testbed through Content-Centric Network: A Prototype

Healthcare and hospital are the most complex service systems. There are three often conflicting dimensions including: clinical data (patient record, medical data), operational, and Financial. Recently we worked on a data processing system for managing and exchanging patient records that are distributed in various hospitals under the medical cloud via the dedicated bandwidth network, namely, the dynamics circuit network (DCN). However, this approach needs the specific devices for supporting the dedicated resources. Currently, a new approach for network that enables the communication to happen by the means of content instead the location called the Content-Centric networking (CCN), which seems to be more beneficial as it reduces congestion and latency and supports emerging applications on mobile and wireless facilities. This paper is a proof of concept in designing a model of Medical network under the Information Centric Network, which is an ad-hoc, flexible, reliable, and simple to use under the Content-Centric concept. Advantages for the e-community as a result of this network will be discussed.

Service structure and cooperation in mental health care

This study assesses exemplarily the regional structure of mental health services and the practice of cooperation of mental health service providers. The aim is to identify starting points for improving mental health care. (1) Mapping of mental health services in four exemplary regions (urban/rural, East/West Germany) using the European Service Mapping Schedule. (2) Analysis of the practice of cooperation in mental health care using focus groups and a postal survey of psychiatrists and psychotherapists working in private practice. All surveyed regions have a well-developed and complex service system available. Cooperation in mental health care takes place in flexible networks rather than in fixed relationships. An explicit concept of cooperation does not exist. Time and resources promote cooperation. Psychiatrists and psychotherapists working in outpatient care mainly cooperate among themselves and rarely on an interdisciplinary basis. In particular psychotherapists are usually not part of cooperation networks. Improvements in mental health care are more likely to be achieved through improving cooperation rather than just developing additional services. Starting points for improvements include-beyond the increase of resources for cooperation - the training of medical students and psychiatrists in cooperation practice, reimbursement of cooperation and coordination and the implementation of systematic coordination of service networks.

Innovation in user-centered skills and performance improvement for sustainable complex service systems

In order to leverage individual and organizational learning and to remain competitive in current turbulent markets it is important for employees, managers, planners and leaders to perform at high levels over time. Employee competence and skills are extremely important matters in view of the general shortage of talent and the mobility of employees with talent. Two factors emerged to have the greatest impact on the competitiveness of complex service systems: improving managerial and employee's knowledge attainment for skills, and improving the training and development of the workforce. This paper introduces the knowledge-based user-centered service design approach for sustainable skill and performance improvement in education, design and modeling of the next generation of complex service systems. The rest of the paper cover topics in human factors and sustainable business process modeling for the service industry, and illustrates the user-centered service system development cycle with the integration of systems engineering concepts in service systems. A roadmap for designing service systems of the future is discussed. The framework introduced in this paper is based on key user-centered design principles and systems engineering applications to support service competitiveness.