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Strategic trends towards service operations have been widely reported in the recent literature, but organisational capabilities to support such service-centred strategies are less well understood. The purpose of this paper is to identify key organisational issues in managing complex engineering service operations throughout the lifecycle.

Using instruments developed from the product lifecycle management technologies and the network configuration concept, key organisational issues for engineering service operations were identified through case studies focusing on complex engineering products and services systems across a variety of industrial sectors.

The case studies demonstrated different organisational features and strategic priorities of engineering service operations along the whole lifecycle. A generic trend has been observed for engineering systems to move from being design, development and manufacturing focused to embracing support and end-of-life recycling matters.

This paper provides an overall framework for integrating key organisational issues in engineering service operations. It contributes to the service literature by highlighting the need of developing appropriate organisational capabilities to support service-centred strategies with engineering cases. It also provides guidance for companies to manage their engineering network operations throughout the whole lifecycle of complex products and services systems.

The purpose of this research is to detect, through applying a process-based view, how to manage economisation of the maintenance and modification operations in offshore petroleum logistics operations.

A single case study of engineering services, more specifically, maintenance and modification service operations, on a Norwegian Sea oil platform reveals the dynamics of building network capabilities in a consistent network structure. Two layers of coordination are studied: the engineering process and its context, represented by its network of interconnected firms. This case study empirically grounds how engineering service involves managing reciprocally interdependent exchange processes in the network structure.

Pooled interdependencies are vital in understanding the nature of service provision and use, and sequential interdependencies are vital in narrating the timing of processes to reveal the nature of process emergence to coordinate strings of production events. Furthermore, the network structure, when characterised by multiple interdependent projects, is also dynamic but at a slower pace.

Through the case study, operations management is revealed to be associated with project emergence at two levels: the core process level regarding daily continuous change, including the changing interaction of multiple different and interdependent projects, and the contextual level, where features of interdependency and integration change, affecting engineering service production. This provides guidance as to the economisation of engineering services. They change not only interactions in the flow of production but also its context.

The aim of this paper is to explore the role of customer involvement in service production and its possible effects on the quality of service delivery as well as customer satisfaction.

Since the nature of the study is exploratory, the case study approach was adopted. The paper focusses on customer involvement in the context of service production and delivery system in service organization rather than in the context of customer organization. The authors looked at supplier involvement as well, due to the fact that a lack of sufficient information from a supplier or lack of proper training may inhibit customers' successful involvement. A detailed case study was carried out on a sample of four service providers: a general contractor, a chemical process engineer, a software developer and a language institute as well as a service buyer case – a Petrochemical Holding Company. In total the paper includes five cases.

The study reveals that even though co‐production of the customers with the service provider is a must, however, it has different effects on the quality of service produced depending on the situation and the nature of services offered. In the cases of the complex engineering services – general contractor and chemical engineering – that service requirements and technical specifications were provided by the customers, and service providers were chosen by open bidding process, there were instances where the co‐production could lead to malfunction of the service. This was evident in the cases when the inappropriate technical specifications and requirements were provided by the customer hindering the service provider to deliver services smoothly. On the other hand, in the cases of new software development process and language institute, it had been evident that the involvement of customers – with a sound customer involvement management – has tremendous positive effects and lead to greater productivity and customer satisfaction. In the case of the petrochemical company and international service providers, educating the suppliers/service providers by the buyer, to a large extent, could solve the service quality problems in terms of on time delivery, costs and technical conformity as stressed by buyers.

The study provides empirical evidence regarding customer involvement in the service production and its possible effects on the quality of service delivery as well as customer satisfaction and sheds light on the situations that customer involvement is a success or a threat. The research also contributes to the understanding of how the nature of services, the level and scope of customer involvement as well as building relationship and trust amongst the customer and the service provider affect the outcome of customer‐service provider co‐production.

The purpose of this paper is to present a visualization method developed as a result of an observed need to capture the organizational arrangements of a complex engineering service enterprise. The focal case study is between a public sector client and private sector provider where multiple organizations contribute resource to create value. This visualization can assist client and provider stakeholders to take a holistic perspective of the purpose and management of their enterprise, highlighting the complexity of value co‐creation in service enterprises and the interdependencies between organizational units.

Development of the Enterprise Image has drawn on research within the service, organizational and individual cognition literatures. Data were obtained from an in‐depth Defence sector case study representing diverse interactions within client and provider communities. The case focused on a fast‐jet aircraft availability contract, where the public sector client outsourced through‐life support activities to a set of private sector providers. Preliminary testing of the validity and utility of the image was conducted by presentations to single and mixed communities of clients and providers involved in value co‐creation.

The paper proposes a method of pictorially representing a complex alliance, called an “Enterprise Image”. The work provides empirically based insight into the management processes of a complex, multi‐organizational service enterprise, where little or no enterprise level management had been in evidence. The Enterprise Image appeared to have the effect of raising questions and conversations about how the overall enterprise might be managed and how ongoing service improvement might be achieved.

In this research the Enterprise Image was drawn by researchers – ongoing research aims to design a method that helps clients and providers co‐create their own Enterprise Image. From current findings the implication of this research will be to encourage enterprise management of ongoing improvement in multi‐organisational service enterprises.

Models and representations for understanding the delivery of value are mostly provider and product focused, despite the recognition in a servitised environment of the complex interactions with client organizations. This paper presents a methodology for visually representing value co‐creation in complex service enterprises where the service includes significant client resource involvement.

This case study aims to explore the risks and challenges associated with the implementation of outcome‐based contracts (OBCs) in maintenance, repair and overhaul services in the defence industry. It also aims to identify ways to address and reduce them.

The case study approach was used to capture the dynamics of OBCs in B2B service delivery. The challenges and risks were explored using qualitative approaches such as in‐depth interviews, and findings were abstracted through grounded theory. The factors identified from the above findings were structured in a survey and validated using simple descriptive statistics.

This study identified the challenges and risks of implementing OBCs, which include complexity and unpredictability of costs, dependability on customer in delivering the service and cultural change from traditional setting. Although the survey results revealed 11 factors that could mitigate these challenges and risks, the most important factors are mutual expectations, teamwork, shared information and materials as well as the firm's access to customer resources.

This study's results have practical implications for businesses implementing OBCs in the B2B arena. Ensuring the presence of these factors, identified from this study, in OBC delivery would overcome most of the challenges and risks faced.

Although research has been done on OBCs, many are conceptual or theoretical studies. This study is an empirical research into the challenges and risks of OBCs and the factors that could mitigate them; this advances knowledge in this domain.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight how systems thinking contributes to decision making in uncertain contexts that are characteristic of service systems. Based on the assumption that service systems face complex conditions, the paper posits that systems thinking may support the understanding of key issues in service management.

This paper proposes an interpretation of complexity in the context of service systems, which highlights the perspective change that occurs when a systems approach is adopted. The offered conceptual perspective is then brought to an operational level, in spite of the complexity of the decisions driving a viable system, by modelling a service system as a network of agents, resources, processes and decisions through the use of fuzzy logic. The paper reviews service management research streams, and takes a deeper look at the concepts of service systems and complex service systems. The paper then proceeds to discuss how systems thinking contributes to service management by proposing a systems interpretation of complexity.

Service management theories and models may be enhanced by integrating prevailing approaches, based on a quantitative and mechanistic view of service systems dynamics, with systems thinking‐based meta‐models that can be used in better understanding service exchanges. The findings of the paper also show how the integration of an engineering approach can be insightful to the understanding of service systems; adopting a Viable Systems Approach (VSA) as a meta‐model can be useful in fully comprehending market behaviour in uncertain conditions.

The originality of this paper lies in exploring the contribution of systems thinking, in particular of the Viable Systems Approach (VSA), to service management and decision making.

In the light of challenges experienced in cost estimation at the bidding stage of complex engineering services in the defence industry (e.g. contracting for availability), the purpose of this paper is to present a framework to manage the influence of uncertainty on cost estimates.

The research applied the Soft Systems Methodology and benefitted from interaction with four major organisations in the defence industry through document sharing, semi-structured interviews, workshops, and case studies.

The framework is composed of seven stages to plan, identify, prioritise, classify, and manage cost uncertainties. Through the validation of three case studies some of the key benefits of the framework were realised in project planning, uncertainty visualisation, and capability management.

The research has been applied in the defence sector in the UK and focuses on the bidding stage. Further research needs to be applied to confirm that the findings are applicable across industries and across the life cycle.

The paper builds on the theory behind risk and uncertainty management and proposes an innovative framework that avoids the assumption of “perfect” knowledge by raising questions about the validity of the input data.