Virtual Service Cooperation in One-of-a-Kind Industries (diss.)

A Reference Model for Managing Collaborative Industrial Services

Researchers:

I. Hartel

Financed by:

Own ressources of the professorship

Motivation:

In today’s one-of-a-kind industries, the relevance and importance of after sales – the phase after products like machinery or factory installations have been designed, produced, and brought into operation – has increased steadily. Large firms manufacturing machines and plant facilities are already beginning to adapt and redesign their after-sales service offerings and their service organizations that deliver them. However, adapting to the new market conditions is a much greater challenge for small and mid-sized manufacturers, especially if service delivery has to be accomplished on a worldwide scale Here, cooperation and collaboration among manufactures, co-producers, and service providers represents an important and cost-effective opportunity for small and mid-sized companies.

Objectives:

But this type of cooperation raises issues that must be solved up-front: What form should the joint activity and the service organization take, and what kind of information and communication technologies are required? Because of the specific characteristics and features of industrial services, it is not possible to simply apply concepts and models of cooperation that were developed for the areas of product development and production. In an effort to close this gap, the present study presents a reference model for the management of collaborative industrial services.

The following activities have already been completed:

The reference model was developed based on an in-depth analysis of current after-sales service offerings in one-of-a-kind industries, available information and communication technologies (ICT) and applications, and the design of after-sales service organizations. In order to identify and characterize already existing as well as new forms of cooperative service delivery, an extensive service-oriented classification scheme was developed. Cooperation options derived from the classification scheme as well as autonomous and contracted service delivery options are compared. It is shown that, compared to existing cooperation options and business practices, the dynamic virtual network organization to a large extent fulfills the requirements of small and mid-sized machine and installation manufacturers. 
As there is currently no service-oriented model available for the design and managing of this type of cross/inter-company collaboration, the paper introduces a new reference model of VIRTUAL SERVICE COOPERATION as a collaborative services delivery system. Based on several (sub-)models and reference processes, the model reveals how such joint activity can be set-up, arranged, and operated. Further, a specific description methodology developed specifically for the modeling of collaborative service delivery processes – called “collaborative blueprints” – is introduced. Finally, the industrial applicability of the newly introduced reference model and the methodology for describing collaborative service delivery processes is demonstrated based on a case study.