Modular Service Research Articles

Service modularity and architecture – an overview and research agenda

PurposeServices are highly important in a world economy which has increasingly become service driven. There is a growing need to better understand the possibilities for, and requirements of, designing modular service architectures. The purpose of this paper is to elaborate on the roots of the emerging research stream on service modularity, provide a concise overview of existing work on the subject, and outline an agenda for future research on service modularity and architecture. The articles in the special issue offer four diverse sets of research on service modularity and architecture.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is built on a literature review mapping the current body of literature on the topic and developing future research directions in service modularity and architecture.FindingsThe growing focus on services has triggered needs to investigate the suitability and implementation of physical-product-focused modularity principles and theories in service contexts, and to search for principles/theories that enhance services. The expanding research stream has explored various aspects of service modularity in empirical contexts. Future research should focus on service-specific modularity theories and principles, platform-based and mass-customized service business models, comparative research designs, customer perspectives and service experience, performance in context of modular services, empirical evidence of benefits and challenges, architectural innovation in services, modularization in multi-provider contexts, and modularity in hybrid offerings combining service and tangible product modules.Originality/valueNine areas are recommended for further research on service modularity and architecture. The introductory piece also discusses the roots of service modularity and provides an overview of current contributions.

Modularizing specialized hospital services

PurposeModularity promises to relieve problems of complexity in service systems. However, limited evidence exists of its application in specialized hospital services. The purpose of this paper is to identify enablers, constraints, and outcomes of modularization in specialized hospital services.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative comparative study of a hematology unit with modular service architecture and an oncology unit with integral service architecture in a university hospital is performed to analyze the service architectures, enablers and constraints of modularization, and outcomes.FindingsA framework and five propositions combining the characteristics of specialized hospital services, enabling activities, and outcomes of modularization were developed. Modular service architecture was developed through limiting the number of treatment components, reorganizing production of standardized components into a separate service unit, and standardizing communication and scheduling in interfaces. Modularization increased service efficiency but diluted ownership of services, decreased customization, and diminished informal communication. This is explained by the specific characteristics of the services: fragmented service delivery, professional autonomy, hierarchy, information asymmetry, and requirement to treat all.Research limitations/implicationsModularization can increase efficiency in specialized hospital services. However, specific characteristics of specialized care may challenge its application and limit its outcomes.Practical implicationsThe study identifies enabling activities and constraints that hospital managers should take into account when developing modular service systems.Originality/valueThis is the first empirical study exploring the enablers, constraints, and outcomes of modularization in specialized hospital services. The study complements literature on service modularity with reference to specialized hospital services.

Implementing Modularization in Professional Services—The Influence of Varied Knowledge Environments

Professional services represent a specific type of business service, one that is strongly based on the knowledge of individual professionals and organizational processes to harness that knowledge. Modularization can help in coordinating creation of the offering and enhancing the cost‐effectiveness of processes. However, utilizing modularity in services, and particularly in professional service firms, is still a field that deserves specific studies. While the product modularity literature has developed definitions, metrics, and a number of hypotheses about modularity, in the field of professional services, we still have to clarify how firms can use modularity.While professional services are often generated from expert‐embedded and even tacit knowledge, which is hard to transfer, implementing modularity may offer one way to facilitate knowledge sharing related to service offerings, organizational processes, and practices. However, when considering the strategic importance of modularity for a professional service firm, it is also necessary to define what the characteristics are in the knowledge base of the organization. Not all professional service firms are alike. The purpose of the present study is to examine how service modularity can be employed within the context of professional services. More specifically, (1) what knowledge‐related characteristics vary between different types of professional service firms? (2) How do these characteristics influence modularization implementation? Two company cases are analyzed to reveal how modularity can be implemented in varying professional service firm environments. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Research on the Construction of Energy Network Based on Modular Energy Service Industry

The energy services industry in China is still in the early stage of development, and it's the size of the industry as well as the existing service level is not enough to meet the diverse needs of the market, and the current industry value chain system is not perfect enough. This paper first analyzes the main elements of the energy service industry and its main body behavior, and further sums up the value link between the various subjects; Secondly, based on the modular and value network theory, the construction of energy service industry value network, the main purpose is to increase the understanding of the energy service industry value network and operational mechanism. The results show that the energy service industry value network is different from the traditional value network system. Under the impetus of the modularization trend, the multi-service module main body, the division of labor and cooperation among the major modules, effectively integrated into the industrial value network to achieve value creation and maximize value.

Examining the link between service modularity and firm performance

PurposeWhile service scholars have generally supported the idea that service modularity enhances firm performance, the literature offers very little evidence of the actual process through which service modularity continuously contributes to firm performance. The purpose of this paper is to examine the link from a capability perspective: service modularity capabilities-service modularity-new service advantage-firm performance, as well as the moderating role of radical innovation capability in the effect of service modularity on new service advantage.Design/methodology/approachTo examine this link, data were collected from a cross-industry survey of 231 leading service firms. Structural equation modeling and hierarchical moderated regression analyses were employed to test the model.FindingsAnalyses reveal that new service advantage mediates the service modularity-firm performance relationship. Moreover, service modularity capabilities act in an important antecedent role to configure service modularity. Among the findings, it is worth emphasizing that radical innovation capability not only strengthens the positive effect of, but also alleviates the negative effect of, service modularity on new service advantage.Originality/valueThis study provides a more complete understanding of how service modularity enhances firm performance by discovering the hidden role of new service advantage that bridges service modularity and firm performance, clarifying the role of service modularity capabilities in configuring service modularity, and confirming the important role of radical innovation capability in sustaining the effectiveness of service modularity.

The biorepository portal toolkit: an honest brokered, modular service oriented software tool set for biospecimen-driven translational research.

BackgroundHigh throughput molecular sequencing and increased biospecimen variety have introduced significant informatics challenges for research biorepository infrastructures. We applied a modular system integration approach to develop an operational biorepository management system. This method enables aggregation of the clinical, specimen and genomic data collected for biorepository resources.MethodsWe introduce an electronic Honest Broker (eHB) and Biorepository Portal (BRP) open source project that, in tandem, allow for data integration while protecting patient privacy. This modular approach allows data and specimens to be associated with a biorepository subject at any time point asynchronously. This lowers the bar to develop new research projects based on scientific merit without institutional review for a proposal.ResultsBy facilitating the automated de-identification of specimen and associated clinical and genomic data we create a future proofed specimen set that can withstand new workflows and be connected to new associated information over time. Thus facilitating collaborative advanced genomic and tissue research.ConclusionsAs of Janurary of 2016 there are 23 unique protocols/patient cohorts being managed in the Biorepository Portal (BRP). There are over 4000 unique subject records in the electronic honest broker (eHB), over 30,000 specimens accessioned and 8 institutions participating in various biobanking activities using this tool kit. We specifically set out to build rich annotation of biospecimens with longitudinal clinical data; BRP/REDCap integration for multi-institutional repositories; EMR integration; further annotated specimens with genomic data specific to a domain; build application hooks for experiments at the specimen level integrated with analytic software; while protecting privacy per the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) and HIPAA.

The alignment of service architecture and organizational structure

ABSTRACTHow does service modularity contribute to performance of service firms and how does organizational architecture facilitate these effects? We propose a new perspective that service modularity contributes to the service performance by increasing efficiency, broadening the service scope, and increasing the visibility of service to customers. Moreover, we bring forward the ambiguous relationship between organization integration and service modularity by holding that organization integration can influence the service modularization process so as to moderate the relationship between service modularity and performance. Our analysis of classic professional service firms (i.e. accounting firms, architecture firms, and law firms) in China, which is a typical emerging market, supports our theoretical framework.

First Lean, then modularization: improving the maintenance of offshore wind turbines

Purpose This paper aims to explore how maintenance tasks can be planned and executed in a smarter way and, consequently, how the operations and maintenance of offshore wind power installations can be improved through modularisation. Design/methodology/approach This is a case study of one of Europe’s leading offshore wind power operators with more than 1,000 wind turbine generators in operation. By focusing on this company, in-depth insights into its operations and maintenance processes are investigated. Findings Lean is identified to constitute an important first step before the modularisation of maintenance tasks. The modularisation of the maintenance of offshore wind farms is identified to reduce preventive maintenance times. Practical implications The paper develops a process to identify the resources needed for maintenance before the modularisation of maintenance tasks and resources can take place. The authors also establish a foundation for the development of a software tool to support the development of the modularisation of maintenance tasks. Originality/value The present study contributes to the rather immature field of research on the operations and maintenance of offshore wind power. Furthermore, it adds to the emerging research area of service modularity.

Cost estimation of a service family based on modularity

Companies are competing to offer high varieties of customised services on top of customised products to increase revenues and customer satisfaction. By adopting product family design methodologies, new concepts such as service families and service platforms are adopted in the service sectors. Despite that, increasing diversity in service offerings induces complexity and difficulty in service cost estimation. This research presents a service family cost estimation methodology that is based on service modularity and activity based costing (ABC). A service family is identified by selecting a set of similar services. Subsequently, activities of each service are identified with an activity diagram. The service family is then decomposed into functional and physical elements, where service modules are identified. Service activities are then mapped into relevant service modules using k-mean clustering algorithms, and activities of each service module are segregated into common and specific services using un-weighted pair group method with arithmetic mean. Finally, modified two-stage ABC methodology is applied to estimate the costs for a service family. To demonstrate the applicability of the proposed methodology, a case study is carried out to estimate the cost for a family of aircraft engines.

Modularity matters: a critical review and synthesis of service modularity

Purpose – The literature on modularity is extensive, but most research has been concerned with the manufacturing sector and much less with the service sector. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the existing research, to provide a critique of the empirical literature on service modularity and to discuss future research opportunities. Design/methodology/approach – To perform this analysis of service modularity, a list of top-tier journals in the field of business management and organisation was compiled. From there, each and every article was identified, examined, coded and classified into high-level themes. These were then reviewed, analysed and interpreted. Findings – This paper argues that the application of modularity in services will likely be influenced by certain characteristics that distinguish services from products. Second, modularity, from the service perspective, has been closely connected to productisation of services, and the discussion of modularity related to services has been greatly influenced by the earlier discussion on product modularity. This paper concludes that modularity in the service development context is still seeking its theoretical “identity” and requires further theoretical and empirical work on service design modularity conceptualisation, methods and measures. Originality/value – This paper has reviewed several significant fields with which research on service modularity has been concerned. It captures and presents the core notion of service modularity in a critical way that might spur further research in the field.

Towards a framework for modular service design synthesis

This paper seeks to improve the understanding of how service-based companies can benefit from developing and delivering service offerings from a standardised core of service modules, which are organised through a service architecture. Research within the field is relatively sparse, and there is scope for an explicit definition of elements related to the development of modular service platforms and architectures. A study of the existing literature, combined with a comprehensive case study in a global engineering consultancy, has created the basis for development and evaluation of the conceptual model for modular service design synthesis presented in this paper. The case study is based on internal documentation and a high level of interview data. Inductive research methods have been used for the analysis. The presented conceptual model defines three suggested dimensions (Market Segmentation, Service Roadmap and Service Architecture Layout) to be included in development of modular service platforms and architectures. Testing indicates a significant standardisation potential for service configuration across service families. Our understanding is that the approach can increase strategic flexibility and adaptability to changes in a quick evolving service market. The empirical part of this paper is exploratory in nature and is limited to one provider of high-end engineering consultancy services. Thus, further research will be needed to verify the aspects of the presented methodology to allow a further generalisation of our findings. Nevertheless, this paper contributes to the emerging literature on service modularity by presenting a specific operational approach for description and utilisation of modular service platforms and architectures.

Service decomposition: a conceptual analysis of modularizing services

Purpose– Applying “modularity” principles in services is gaining in popularity. The purpose of this paper is to enrich existing service modularity theory and practice by exploring how services are being decomposed and how the modularization aim and the routineness of the service(s) involved may link to different decomposition logics. The authors argue that these are fundamental questions that have barely been addressed.Design/methodology/approach– The authors first built a theoretical framework of decomposition steps and the design choices involved that distinguished six decomposition logics. The authors conducted a systematic literature search that generated 18 empirical articles describing 16 service modularity cases. The authors analysed these cases in terms of decomposition logic and two main contingencies: modularization aim and service routineness.Findings– Only three of the 18 articles explicitly addressed the service decomposition by reflecting on the underlying design choices. By unravelling the decomposition in each case, the authors were able to identify the decomposition logic and found four of the six theoretically derived logics: single-level process oriented; single-level outcome oriented; multilevel outcome oriented; and multilevel combined orientation. Although the authors did not find a direct relationship between the modularization aim and the decomposition logic, the authors did find that single-level decomposition logics seem to be mainly applied in non-routine service offerings whereas the multilevel ones are mainly applied in routine service offerings.Originality/value– By contributing to a common understanding of modular service decomposition and proposing a framework that explicates the design choices involved, the authors enable an enhanced application of the modularity concept in services.

A Concept for the Architecture of an Open Platform for Modular Mobility Services in the Smart City

It is difficult for developers of mobility solutions to gather accurate mobility data, such as the traffic flow or available parking spaces. This data is available in a smart city, but it is not made accessible to external developers for creating innovative mobility solutions. As it remains unclear how this could be done, this paper proposes a concept for the architecture of an open platform for modular mobility services. The design of the architecture follows a design science research approach. The developed concept for the architecture of the platform consists of the following elements: data sources, layers of modular services, integration layer and solutions. Additionally, possible modular services are described. This paper is limited by the fact that the architecture has not yet been implemented and evaluated. However, this is planned for future research. This paper contributes to theory by giving guidance for future research on service platforms and to practice as it shows how available mobility data could be made accessible for mobility solution developers.

An Investigation to Manufacturing Analytical Services Composition using the Analytical Target Cascading Method.

As cloud computing is increasingly adopted, the trend is to offer software functions as modular services and compose them into larger, more meaningful ones. The trend is attractive to analytical problems in the manufacturing system design and performance improvement domain because 1) finding a global optimization for the system is a complex problem; and 2) sub-problems are typically compartmentalized by the organizational structure. However, solving sub-problems by independent services can result in a sub-optimal solution at the system level. This paper investigates the technique called Analytical Target Cascading (ATC) to coordinate the optimization of loosely-coupled sub-problems, each may be modularly formulated by differing departments and be solved by modular analytical services. The result demonstrates that ATC is a promising method in that it offers system-level optimal solutions that can scale up by exploiting distributed and modular executions while allowing easier management of the problem formulation.

API (API Economy)

Bulgarian Abstract: Монолитната инфраструктура и приложения, които са обслужвали бизнеса през последните няколко десетилетия се заменят от нов бизнес модел, който се базира на разпределени модулни услуги - API. Те се базират на малки, независими, и многократно използваеми микро услуги, които се използват лесно и могат да бъдат асемблират в по-сложен софтуер. В резултат на това бизнесът може да се възползва от предлаганите услуги, данни и електронни ресурси от техни конкуренти или партньори. English Abstract: Monolithic infrastructure and applications that have served businesses over the past few decades are being replaced by a new business model based on distributed modular services - the API. They are based on small, independent, and reusable micro services that are easy to use and can be assembled into more sophisticated software. As a result, businesses can take advantage of the services, data, and electronic resources offered by their competitors or partners

The Efficient Provision of Culture-Sensitive Services A Modularization Approach

This paper presents first guidelines for the cultural adaptation and efficient global provision of services. For this purpose, it elaborates on how to consider culture-specific components of a service on the basis of systematic service modularization. This is illustrated by the example of an IT-mediated learning service, which is usually perceived differently in diverse cultures. To this end, a process model is described based on culture theory and systematic modularization in order to identify culture-specific and culture-independent components of a learning service for its consideration within global service provision. This contribution to practice is complemented by the theoretical contribution of the inclusion of culture-theoretical components into service modularization.

Organising health services through modularity

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to analyse the way in which the factors influencing a transformation towards or away from modularity, according to general modular systems theory, appear in the context of health services, and the extent to which the special characteristics of health services might support or prevent its application.Design/methodology/approach– The arguments constructed in the study are based on the theme of modularity, reflected against the special characteristics of health services identified in the context of health economics.Findings– The results include 11 proposition pairs that direct health services both towards and away from modularity.Research limitations/implications– Health services are highly heterogeneous in nature and the authors illustrate this with a wide range of examples from elderly care as the authors discuss the application of modularity in this context. Nevertheless, the authors recognise that modularity might suit some health services better than others. The findings provide potentially important information to health service managers and providers, enabling them to understand how modularity would benefit health service provision and where contradictions are to be expected.Originality/value– This study contributes to the discourse on service modularity in general, and complements the literature on modularity with reference to both public and private health services.

Exploring the “mid office” concept as an enabler of mass customization in services

Purpose– Mass customization (MC) is a well-established strategy for providing high levels of customization while achieving the scale economies of high volume production. The purpose of this paper is to explore a new service design configuration, the “mid office,” as a service interface which may support front office customization capabilities while protecting the back office from disruption. The authors posit that it may facilitate MC by enabling product/service and organizational modularity.Design/methodology/approach– The research is based on a single case study of a large European bank’s payment services, traditionally high volume, low variety operations. The bank adopted a MC strategy which involved the creation of a mid office. The analysis spans product/service and organizational design.Findings– When combined with menu-driven customization and reuse modularization, the mid office appears to support partial rather than full MC. It facilitates postponement of customization to the assembly stage through service coproduction, organizational decoupling, and the streamlining of employee adaptive behaviors.Research limitations/implications– The study bears the limitations typical of case study research; however this was appropriate given the exploratory nature of the research into a nascent concept.Practical implications– The paper identifies a series of design decisions to enable practitioners to choose between full and partial service MC, ensuring design coherence through a mirror effect of service modularity and organizational modularity.Originality/value– It is argued that the mid office is a service interface which facilitates partial MC by enabling service and organizational modularity. The paper reinterprets the archetypes of full and partial MC in service terms, and proposes a contingent approach to service MC implementation based on service value.

Systematic Design of Modular Service Architectures for Complex Service Systems

The principle of modularity has become more and more important for designing modular service systems. During the last years, a number of modularization methods have been proposed and applied to services. In order to systematize and compare these methods, we conducted a systematic integrative literature review. We identified 12 methods published between 1998 and 2013 and developed a set of eight criteria for the subsequent analysis. The results of this analysis indicate that the major part of these methods focuses on analysis and design tasks during the development of modular service architectures. Subsequently, we propose a framework for service modularization that consists of four phases: framework calibration, analysis, module design and architecture design. This framework especially focuses on the systematization of the tasks to be conducted during the analysis of a service system and the design of a modular service architecture. We argue that an iterative refinement and a continual validation of the constituent elements and their interdependencies during the whole modularization process with experts from different domains are indispensable. Finally, we discuss our proposition in relation to existing modularization methods as well as regarding its strengths and limitations.

Modularity in KIBS: The Case of Third-Party Logistics Service Providers

This paper investigates service modularity and inter-organizational coupling in knowledge-intensive business services (KIBS). While KIBS literature traditionally emphasizes tight client–provider interactions with service customization, modularity literature emphasizes inter-organizational decoupling with service standardization. We disentangle this tension by exploring how KIBS firms utilize service modularity and shape their client–provider relationships in terms of information and knowledge sharing. Conducting two in-depth case studies of third-party logistics (TPLs), we show that TPLs extensively rely on service modularity with standard procedures as their constitutive element. We also demonstrate that service modularity and inter-organizational decoupling are aligned for knowledge sharing but not for information sharing, which remains high regardless of the service architecture. Overall, we suggest that modularity in KIBS differs in many aspects from modularity in products and that these differences significantly impact the organizational design consequences of service modularity. Theoretical and managerial implications are drawn.