The path to a computer-aided design system for services

With the increasing significance of services for manufacturing companies, interest has also increased in the question of how services can be developed and tested systematically and efficiently. Since the initial approaches of the 1990s (Ramaswamy, 1996; Bullinger, 1995), a whole range of approaches have been developed with terms such as new service development, service engineering or service design, which not only have a high profile in the world of research but also within companies. However, this does not mean that they are generally used in practice (Burger et al, 2011). In our opinion, this reticence on the part of companies is based on the fact that the suggested innovation models only cover a small segment of actual development projects and so are of limited use. In addition, there is a lack of effective technological support to simplify the use of these methods. This would be of particular relevance to system services whose development is complex and associated with not insignificant financial risks. In this regard, the ROUTIS project has set itself very ambitious goals. The development of a practice-based innovation model is intended to make a contribution to the faster development of system services so that they can be brought to market more quickly and form the basis for a computer-aided design system for services (ServCAD). This paper presents the project's initial results.