Modularization of Industrial Services (small)

Researcher:

F. Seite

Partner:

AS Aufzüge
Netstal Maschinen AG
Pfiffner AG

Financed by:

Industrial partners’ contributions
The Professorship’s own resources

Motivation:

Industrial services are becoming an increasingly important source of revenue and profit for manufacturing companies of the investment goods industry. Especially in times of few installations of new machines, after-sales services remain a more constant business, ensuring employment and revenue. However, compared to the design of physical products or financial services, research on the design of industrial, technically challenging services is still limited. The design of industrial services becomes crucial when companies adapt their offerings according to specific customer requirements, in terms of service levels such as delivery times, payment conditions or service intervals. Over time, a large variety of service products need to be delivered, confronting the service organization of manufacturing companies with challenging situations.

Objectives:

Hence, the objective of the project “Modularization of Industrial Services” is to develop design principles for providing service variants efficiently through modularization. 
As a basis, the differing customer requirements were gathered with some of the different partner companies. The result of this phase will be an approach regarding how to identify differing customer requirements and how to identify the potential for further revenue through adapting service products according to customers’ needs.
The second phase of the project aimed at highlighting how service products that differ
in terms of service levels can be offered efficiently. Modular design principles from
physical products were adapted in cooperation with the industrial partners in order to allow a customized service rendering. Based on modular design modifications, customized service products can be designed starting from the standard service product.

Activities completed:

Within the first phase, the customer requirements of the industrial partners were  identified through workshops with sales and service representatives. The results of this phase show that the adaptation of service offerings according to customer requirements offers high revenue potential. First ideas for service product adaptations where gathered and discussed with the companies. Next the relevant service processes were analyzed in order to identify inherent modules. Based on
modular operators different design opportunities were found and categorized in terms of their effectiveness and efficiency. An approach for evaluating new service modules was elaborated. In collaboration with the industrial partners new service products were developed which are currently undergoing a final evaluation for implementation within the companies.