Service science, management, and engineering (SSME) is a term introduced by IBM to describe an interdisciplinary approach to the study and innovation of service systems. More precisely, SSME has been defined as the application of science, management, and engineering disciplines to tasks that one organization beneficially performs for and with another. Today, SSME is a call for academia, industry, and governments to focus on becoming more systematic about innovation in the service sector, which is the largest sector of the economy in most industrialized nations, and is fast becoming the largest sector in developing nations as well. SSME is also a proposed academic discipline and research area that would complement – rather than replace – the many disciplines that contribute to knowledge about service.[1] The interdisciplinary nature of the field calls for a curriculum and competencies to advance the development and contribution of the field of SSME.[2]
Service systems
"Service system" is a term that frequently appears in the service management, service operations, services marketing, service design, and service engineering literatures.
Service involves both a provider and a client working together to create value. A doctor interviews a patient, conducts some tests, and prescribes some medicine – the patient answers the questions, cooperates with the tests, and ingests the medicine faithfully. Perhaps technologies and other people are involved in the tests or in the assignment and filling of prescriptions. Together, doctor, patient, others, and technologies co-create value – in this case, patient health. These relationships and dependencies can be viewed as a system of interacting parts. In many cases, a service system is a complex kind of system – a system in which the parts interact with each other in a non-linear manner. As such, a service system is not only the sum of its parts; complex interactions between the different parts create a system which behaves in a difficult-to-predict set of patterns. In many cases, a main source of complexity in a service system is its people: the client, the provider, or other organizations.
Service systems are designed and constructed, are often very large, and, as complex systems, they have emergent properties. This makes them an engineering kind of system (in MIT's terms).[3] [4] For instance, large-scale service systems include major metropolitan hospitals, highway or high-rise construction projects, and large IT outsourcing operations in which one company takes over the daily operations of IT infrastructure for another. In all these cases, systems are designed and constructed to provide and sustain service, yet because of their complexity and size, operations do not always go as planned or expected, and not all interactions or results can be anticipated or accurately predicted.
As the world becomes more complex and uncertain socially and economically, a computational thinking approach has been proposed to model the dynamics and adaptiveness of a service system, aimed at fully leveraging today's ubiquitous digitized information, computing capability and computational power so that the service system can be studied qualitatively and quantitatively. [5]
Service Science
SSME is often referred to as service science for short.[6] The flagship journal Service Science] is published by the professional association INFORMS. The journal publishes innovative and original papers on all topics related to service, including work that crosses traditional disciplinary boundaries. It is the primary forum for presenting new theories and new empirical results in the emerging, interdisciplinary science of service, incorporating research, education, and practice, documenting empirical, modeling, and theoretical studies of service and service systems. INFORMS has an annual international conference on Service Science. You can find it from INFORMS Meetings & Conferences page.
Service Science is an interdisciplinary field that provides a foundation for service engineering and service management. [7] With the foundation of systems theory, operations research, management science, marketing science, advanced computing and communication technology, network theory, social computing, and analytics, Service Science can be rigorously developed, involving descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive research of a service spanning its lifecycle (i.e., market analysis, design, engineering, delivery, and sustaining) in an integral and quantitative manner. Service is people-centric, societal, cultural, and bilateral. The type and nature of a service dictates how service should be designed and delivered, which accordingly determine how a series of service encounters should occur throughout its lifecycle. The type, order, frequency, timing, time, efficiency, and effectiveness of the series of service encounters throughout the service lifecycle determine the quality of services perceived by customers who purchase and consume the services.
See also
References
- ^ IfM and IBM (2007) "Succeeding Through Service Innovation: A service perspective for education, research, business and government.", "Cambridge Service Science, Management and Engineering Symposium"
- ^ Choudaha, Rahul (2008) "Competency-based curriculum for a master's program in Service Science, Management and Engineering (SSME)", "Doctoral dissertation, University of Denver"
- ^ "MIT-NSF Workshop on Smarter Service Systems".
- ^ "The Continuing Evolution of Service Science".
- ^ Qiu, R. (2009) "Computational Thinking of Service Systems: Dynamics and Adaptiveness Modeling" "INFORMS Service Science Vol 1., No 1."
- ^ Spohrer, J., Kwan SK. (2009) "Service Science, Management, Engineering, and Design (SSMED): An Emerging Discipline - Outline & References", International Journal of Information Systems in the Service Sector, Vol. 1, No. 3.
- ^ Qiu, R. (2014) "Service Science: The Foundations of Service Engineering and Management", "John Wiley & Sons"
Further reading
- Hefley B, Murphy W (eds.) (2008) "Service Science, Management, and Engineering: Education for the 21st Century." New York NY USA: Springer.
- Xiong G, Liu Z, Liu XW, Zhu, Shen D (2013) "Service Science, Management, and Engineering: Theory and Applictions." Cambridge MA USA: Academic Press.
- Cardoso J, Fromm H, Nickel S, Satzger G, Studer R, Weinhardt C (2015) "Fundamentals of Service Systems." New York NY USA: Springer.
- Kijima K (ed.) (2010) "Service Systems Science." New York NY USA: Springer.
- Qiu RG (2014) "Service Science: The Foundations of Service Engineering and Management." Hoboken NJ USA: John Wiley & Sons.
- Galvendy S, Karwowski W (eds.) (2010) "Introduction to Service Engineering." Hoboken NJ USA: John Wiley & Sons.
- Andersen B, Howells J, Hull R, Miles I, Roberts J (eds.) (2000) "Knowledge and Innovation in the New Service Economy." Cheltenham UK: Edward Elgar.
- Metcalfe JS, Miles I (eds.) (2000) "Innovation Systems in the Service Economy: Measurement and Case Study Analysis." New York NY USA: Springer.
- Gadrey J, Gallouj F (eds.) (2002) "Productivity, Innovation and Knowledge in Services: New Economic and Socio-Economic Approaches." Cheltenham UK: Edward Elgar.
- Maglio PP, Kieliszewski CA, Spohrer JC (eds.) (2010) “Handbook of Service Science.” New York NY USA: Springer.
- Pym D, Taylor R, Tofts C (2007) "Public Services Innovation through Technology." Bristol UK: Hewlett-Packard.