| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中興大學 === 科技管理研究所 === 103 === Service science, management and engineering (SSME) have been intensively re-searched in the last couple of years. However, little has been done on providing framework to elucidate the scope and contents in the three major disciplines in SSME, namely service science, service management and service engineering. In this paper, a framework for service engineering (or service systems engineering) is presented; and the differences amongst service engineering, service science and service management are identified and the models for service systems modeling are presented.
To lay the framework for service engineering, the context of a service system is discussed and the process of service engineering is defined. By that, the relations amongst service engineering, service science and service management elucidated. We perceive a service system as an ecosystem composing of people, process (i.e. the service delivery process) and tools/technologies; and its purpose is to deliver quality service to its end customers (or service consumers). Thus, we adopt the IEEE defini-tion of software engineering and define service engineering as a system development process based on the application of a systematic disciplined, quantifiable approach to the development, operation, maintenance of service systems. Service engineering process consists of multiple stages namely analysis, design, implementation and maintenance. With the above definition on service engineering, we are able to identify clearly the similarities and differences amongst service engineering, service science and service management. Service science focuses on understanding the behaviors of a service system like an organization or a service ecosystem which consists of many organizations. By understanding, it refers to system modeling and system analysis. The behaviors could refer to the performance, the service quality and the competi-tiveness of the service system. To be science, the models have to be formal. Analysis has to be analytical. For complex service systems, extensive computer simulations have to be conducted. In this regard, theories in stochastic processes and operations research, and techniques in computer simulations will be applied. With reference to the five-stage model for service engineering, large amount of works to be done in the stages of analysis and design are essentially the same as the works to be done in ser-vice science. Except that attaining optimal design is not a goal in service science. Note that the scope of service science is not limited to the analysis of service systems within an organization. All kind of service systems existing in the world are the inter-ests in service science. Service management refers to managing the processes (service delivery process and other supporting processes), the people and the tools within an organization in order to deliver quality services/products to the end customers and managing the services for managing the usage and the development of the services. Management processes include order fulfillment, human resource management, sup-ply chain management, customer relationship management, marketing and financing, and information management. The definition of the tasks to be accomplished in each of these management processes have to be done in the stages of design, implementa-tion, and maintenance and review. In the design stage, service manager has to make sure that the service deliver process is practical and accountable. The organization structure is feasible. In the implementation stage, service manager has to track the progress and make sure the implementation can meet the schedule. The performance of the service system fulfills all the performance indices being set in the design stage. In the stage of maintenance and review, service manager will have to monitor both the performance of the system and the customer perception on the service quality. Re-views are conducted in regular basis. In other words, it refers to the management of all the operations within an organization. Note that managing service marketing is a task but not the only focus in service management.
About service system modeling, it is surprisingly that little progress has been achieved in so far. One reason we suspect is on the modeling language. Engineers and scientists rely on UML and mathematical models to visualize a system, while man-agement professionals rely on service blueprint and GAP model. It is clear that com-munication gap exists in between these two groups of professionals. In this regard, we summarize a number of diagrams which can aid the design and analysis of a service system. Some of them are extracted from the UML and some of them extracted from the literatures in service marketing. Cases are presented to illustrate the use of these diagrams and models.
Apart from laying the framework for service engineering and suggesting models for service systems modeling, some related issues are discussed. One is about the concept of technology management in SSME. We argue that technology management and SSME are closely connected. T-shape professionals are not able to be trained in college. On the contrary, T-shape professionals are naturally evolved if they have been working many years in the industry with enough experience in service projects. Then, a few definitions on service are reviewed. The evolutionary and diversified na-tures of services are commented.
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