This book presents a general conceptual framework to translate
principles of system science and engineering to service design. Services
are co-created immaterial, heterogeneous, and perishable state changes.
A service system includes the intended benefit to the customer and the
structure and processes that accomplish this benefit. The primary focus
is on the part of the service system that can reproduce such processes,
called here a Service Machine, and methodological guidelines on how to
analyze and design them. While the benefit and the process are designed
based on the domain knowledge of each respective field, service
production systems have common properties. The Service Machine is a
metaphor that elicits the fundamental characteristics of service systems
that do something efficiently, quickly, or repeatedly for a defined end.
A machine is an artifact designed for a purpose, has several parts, such
as inputs, energy flows, processors, connectors, and motors assembled as
per design specifications. In case of service machine, the components
are various contracts assembled on contractual frames. The book
discusses Emergency Medical Services (EMS) and Emergency Departments
(ED) as cases. They illustrate that service machines need to be
structured to adapt to the constraints of the served market
acknowledging the fact that services are co-created through the
integration of producers' and customers' resources. This book is highly
recommended for those who are interested in understanding the
fundamental concepts of designing service machines.
