Conceptualizing smart service systems

Abstract

Recent years have seen the emergence of physical products that are digitally networked with other products and with information systems to enable complex business scenarios in manufacturing, mobility, or healthcare. These "smart products", which enable the co-creation of "smart service" that is based on monitoring, optimization, remote control, and autonomous adaptation of products, profoundly transform service systems into what we call "smart service systems". In a multi-method study that includes conceptual research and qualitative data from in-depth interviews, we conceptualize "smart service" and "smart service systems" based on using smart products as boundary objects that integrate service consumers' and service providers' resources and activities. Smart products allow both actors to retrieve and to analyze aggregated field evidence and to adapt service systems based on contextual data. We discuss the implications that the introduction of smart service systems have for foundational concepts of service science and conclude that smart service systems are characterized by technology-mediated, continuous, and routinized interactions.

Data-Driven Understanding of Smart Service Systems Through Text Mining

“…Technology-mediated service (Schumann et al 2012) or mobile service (Heo et al 2017) emphasizes efficient delivery of information to people, whereas information-intensive service focuses mainly on creating information that helps people achieve their goals (e.g., exercise and transportation) and collecting the right data to create useful information Kim 2015, Lim et al 2018b). Such traditional technology-based service concepts focus on specific resources or activities of service systems, whereas the smart service system concept in our study focuses on the entire system of resources and activities to consider how capabilities operate together to increase mutual value (Beverungen et al 2017). In summary, the smart service system concept depends on systems thinking (Frost and Lyons 2017) and value creation .…”

“…Yet despite its importance, the concept of "smart service system" is unclear (Beverungen et al 2017). What is it?…”

Configuration in smart service systems: A practice‐based inquiry

“…A common assumption in literature on smart service systems is that human and nonhuman actors form configurations that cocreate value (Beverungen et al, ; Lim & Maglio, ; Wünderlich et al, ). Smart technologies are viewed as central components, which play dual roles in configuration: Smart technologies are elements of a configuration and also are agents that configure or (re)configure the elements in the configuration (Beverungen, Matzner, & Janiesch, ; Lim, Kim, Kim, Heo, et al, ; Lim, Kim, Kim, Kim, & Maglio, ).…”

“…Beverungen et al () offer a more microlevel perspective by situating the smart products featured in smart service systems into human activities. Acting as boundary objects (Bergman, Lyytinen, & Mark, ; Carlile, ; Star & Griesemer, ), smart products integrate the resources of individual or collective actors (customer and service provider) to allow value propositions to be realized.…”

“…A corpus of research addressing smart service systems is developing across disciplines such as information systems (Beverungen, Matzner, & Janiesch, ; Beverungen, Müller, Matzner, Mendling, & vom Brocke, ; Geirbo, ), service science (Barile & Polese, ; Maglio & Lim, ; Wuenderlich et al, ), and engineering (Gretzel, Werthner, Koo, & Lamsfus, ; Massink, Harrison, & Latella, ). Researchers have advanced this topic by articulating what types of smart services can be offered on the basis of smart technologies (Gavrilova & Kokoulina, ), by advising how to innovate in smart services (Geum, Jeon, & Lee, ; Lim, Kim, Kim, Kim, & Maglio, ; Lim, Maglio, Kim, Kim, & Kim, ), and by applying a smart service systems lens to particular domains (Carrubbo, Bruni, Cavacece, & Moretta Tartaglione, ; Gretzel et al, ).…”