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The purpose of this paper is to describe the service process of municipal home care catering with respect to both sub‐processes and their development needs. One case is introduced.

Existing research on Meals‐On‐Wheels is illustrated. The theoretical concepts include service design, a service process, and a foodservice production process. Empirical data were collected from the two representatives of the case organisation by using a theme interview form.

The service process of home care catering comprises an information system and four sub‐processes: customer registration and ordering; food production; meal delivery; and invoicing. The main development needs focus on the electronic information system. Other development needs concern menu design, utilizing a cook‐chill method, delivering chilled meals, offering a service voucher, and implementing invoicing with other municipalities.

Due to an aging population, demand on the municipal home care catering services is increasing. The efficiency of the sub‐processes has to be improved by an electronic information system. Alternative models in home care catering service have to be offered.

The findings offer ideas to other home care catering organisations for developing their service processes.

Service delivery requires the reception and processing of customer information. To deliver a service that satisfies customers, service job design should consider information needed to complete service delivery tasks. The objective here is to determine if the quantity of customer information received by a service delivery process has implications for service job design.

This paper addresses the growing fragmentation between traditional and digital service innovation (DSI) research and offers a unifying metatheoretical framework.

Grounded in service-dominant (S-D) logic's service ecosystems perspective, this study builds on an institutional and systemic, rather than product-centric and linear, conceptualization of value creation to offer a unifying framework for (digital) service innovation that applies to both physical and digital service provisions.

This paper questions the commonly perpetuated idea that DSI fundamentally changes the nature of innovation. Instead, it highlights resource liquification—the decoupling of information from the technologies that store, transmit, or process this information—as a distinguishing characteristic of DSI. Liquification, however, does not affect the relational and institutional nature of service innovation, which is always characterized by (1) the emergence of novel outcomes, (2) distributed governance and (3) symbiotic design. Instead, liquification makes these three characteristics more salient.

In presenting a cohesive service innovation framework, this study underscores that all innovation processes are rooted in combinatorial evolution. Here, service-providing actors (re)combine technologies (or more generally, institutions) to adapt their value cocreation practices. This research demonstrates that such (re)combinations exhibit emergence, distributed governance and symbiotic design. While these characteristics may initially seem novel and unique to DSI, it reveals that their fundamental mechanisms are not limited to digital service ecosystems. They are, in fact, integral to service innovation across virtual, physical and blended contexts. The study highlights the importance of exercising caution in assuming that the emergence of novel technologies, including digital technologies, necessitates a concurrent rethinking of the fundamental processes of service innovation.

The purpose of the paper is to present a service design (SD)-based methodology developed to help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) undertake organisational change.

This research used the design science research methodology, which enabled the creation of the Service Design for Organisational Change (SD4OCh) methodology. A real case study of a small service company specialised in neuropsychological disorders was used for the definition and validation of SD4OCh.

The main outcome of this study is the SD4OCh methodology, which is based on three key stages: diagnosis (knowing where to begin by detecting the organisation's strengths and weaknesses), innovation (improving the structure/processes and designing/redesigning services by employing a customer-centric approach), and implementation (enabling the definition of the route towards organisational change). There is also a transversal evaluation stage, which quantifies the organisational changes.

This study adds valuable knowledge to the service science research field and contributes to the awareness of the usefulness of SD theory within companies, especially those which are small and medium-sized, since those companies lack the tools and methods required to tackle organisational change, signifying that the challenges the companies confront are different to those of larger companies.

Although this is a SD-based research, the SD4OCh methodology was developed in order to enable companies to make holistic changes, namely, to innovate their services, structure, and processes, thus supporting and guiding organisational change.

The purpose of this paper is to implement statistical process control (SPC) in service quality using three-level SERVQUAL, quality function deployment (QFD) and internal measure.

The SERVQUAL questionnaire is developed according to internal services of train. Also, it is verified by reliability scale and factor analysis. QFD method is employed for translating SERVQUAL dimensions’ importance weights which are derived from Analytic Hierarchy Process into internal measures. Furthermore, the limits of the Zone of Tolerance are used to determine service quality specification limits based on normal distribution characteristics. Control charts and process capability indices are used to control service processes.

SPC is used for service quality through a structured framework. Also, an adapted SERVQUAL questionnaire is created for measuring quality of train’s internal services. In the case study, it is shown that reliability is the most important dimension in internal services of train for the passengers. Also, the service process is not capable to perform in acceptable level.

The proposed algorithm is practically applied to control the quality of a train’s services. Internal measure is improved for continuous data collection and process monitoring. Also, it provides an opportunity to apply SPC on intangible attributes of the services. In the other word, SPC is used to control the qualitative specifications of the service processes which have been measured by SERVQUAL.

Since SPC is usually used for manufacturing processes, this paper develops a model to use SPC in services in presence of qualitative criteria. To reach this goal, this model combines SERVQUAL, QFD, normal probability distribution, control charts, and process capability. In addition, it is a novel research on internal services of train with regard to service quality evaluation and process control.

This paper aims to provide an innovative solution on new service development (NSD) implementation by the project management competences and processes of IPMA ICB 3.0 and PMI PMBOK Guide 5th E.

By breaking NSD work breakdown structure into five control accounts, each account has its own suggested work packages concluded from reviewed literatures.

This research sequentially presents proper PM competences and processes as solutions for these control accounts and their work packages.

This study was to provide an innovative solution on NSD implementation by the project management competences and processes of IPMA ICB 3.0 and PMI PMBOK Guide 5th E. By breaking NSD work breakdown structure into five control accounts, each account has its own suggested work packages concluded from reviewed literatures. This research sequentially presents proper PM competences and processes as solutions for these control accounts and their work packages. Consequently, we concluded that the PM competences and processes furnish a favorable base where any NSD project is suitable to deploy without compromising its original features.

Consequently, it is concluded that the PM competences and processes furnish a favorable base where any NSD project is suitable to deploy without compromising its original features.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the applicability of a number of performance management techniques in the outsourcing process, in a business services context.

Using a structured outsourcing framework, performance management techniques are applied in a financial services organisation over a three‐year period. A case study approach is employed to undertake the research, which involved the research team engaging directly with the organisation throughout the outsourcing process.

Applying performance management techniques in the outsourcing process is challenging in a number of areas including comparison difficulties, incomplete information and inadequate performance management systems. However, benchmarking and cost analysis are useful mechanisms for improving performance, and reducing costs via internal process redesign or outsourcing. Performance management techniques can be employed to remove inefficiencies from processes both prior to outsourcing and during the outsourcing relationship.

There are a number of limitations of the research approach including gaining full participation from the company, having access to all relevant company information and time constraints.

The research findings highlight the implications of applying performance management techniques in a practical outsourcing setting. As well as identifying the challenges, the research highlights the value of integrating critical success factors, cost analysis, benchmarking and other performance management techniques into the outsourcing process.

There are few studies in the literature of applying performance management techniques in the outsourcing process at an operation's level. The findings have identified the challenges and benefits of performance management techniques in the outsourcing process. The findings have highlighted the importance of operations management concepts such as performance management, operations strategy, business improvement and process re‐design to services outsourcing, and the need for further research in this area by operations management scholars.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a service development process that is adapted to manufacturing companies and to discuss its implications for companies with a traditional focus on product development and product sales.

The paper looks at new service development (NSD) literature and argues for a rationale to study NSD processes in a manufacturing context. Next, a generic NSD framework for manufacturing companies is presented. Examples are given based on an explorative multiple case study (ten companies) with in‐depth interviews and focus groups. The analysis reveals organizational requirements and other critical factors related to each stage of the NSD process.

A four‐stage service offering development framework is presented. Critical aspects of NSD in a manufacturing context are highlighted. The importance of considering both NSD and new product development (NPD) together is also emphasized.

The limitations are based primarily on methodology; the case studies focused only on the service organizations of the manufacturing companies studied.

Managers need to be aware of the inter‐relationship that exists between NSD and NPD and on the specificities of service development in companies where an industrial logic dominates. A number of managerial implications are proposed and discussed.

The paper emphasizes the importance of latter stages in NSD, something that has not previously been extensively studied or addressed. In addition, to explicitly discuss NSD in a manufacturing context is novel.

Services are processes, and hence service firms do not offer products that are comparable to preproduced bundles of physical resources and features that are provided by manufacturing companies. Instead the outcome of the process is an integral part of the service process which is consumed by customers as a solution to perceived problems. Thus the use of a service can be characterized as process consumption as opposed to outcome consumption, where only the outcome of a process is consumed or used. In the present article the marketing consequences of the process characteristics of services are analyzed and compared with the marketing of physical goods, which is characterized by outcome consumption. The most important difference is the fact that service firms do not offer preproduced products but processes as solutions to the problems of their customers. Because of the process nature of services, the fulfillment of promises given through external marketing is dependent on the attitudes and behavior of a large number of part‐time marketers. Moreover, operational systems and physical resources in the service system have to be customer oriented. To increase the understanding of service processes as solutions to customers’ problems and as objects of marketing, the present article proposes that the perceived service quality concept can provide a way to replace the missing product construct with a conceptual framework for planning a customer‐oriented process. This is illustrated by a case study in an industrial service context.

Service management has underestimated the importance of a process description in achieving service and organizational excellence. What service managers need is a methodology for describing service processes. Recommends the use of the structured analysis and design technique (SADT), a methodology particularly suitable for activity‐based processes. It can be used to help service providers obtain a better picture of the processes in which they participate, achieve improvements in service delivery, foster internal communication, and even design a service. Illustrates in two models the concepts of the SADT and its graphics language – the first developed in a professional service firm, and the second in an academic setting. Evaluates the SADT against eight criteria and concludes that the SADT is a versatile and useful modelling methodology that will help service management and employees reach organizational consensus on a service process.