University of Northumbria 29th November 2006

The Development of Service Design from the prospective of UK Design Engineering and

Business Management – (Or - I’m a thick engineer designing services)

Bill Hollins

Points to be covered: To show the differences and similarities between

developing engineering products and services.

To show the results of research into Service Design Management in Britain.

To show a couple of short cases of service design.

I’m Bill Hollins – an engineer that does service design management.

Seventeen years ago, I was teaching design management on the MBA

when a student said:

‘Why do you keep talking about the design of cars when we all work in the service sector?’

That started me looking at how to design services.

I thought that with my skills I could steer our colleagues in the service

sector to greater success!

Total Design (to me) is:

A multidisciplinary iterative process that takes an idea and/or market need forward into a

product or service. Design ends with disposal.

WHAT IS SERVICE DESIGN?

Service design can be both tangible and intangible. It can involve artefacts and other things including communication, environment and behaviours.

And Design Management is about organising things:

ActivitiesPeopleMoneyTime Ideas

‘If you think good design is expensive, look how much bad design costs.’

Martyn Denny, Sales and Marketing Director, Aqualisa, 2002

A simple model for service design: MARKET

SPECIFICATION

CONCEPT DESIGN

DETAIL DESIGN

IMPLEMENT

DISPOSAL

You can’t manage design without a process

The figure around which BS 7000 –3 (2007) is based

Services are more about people

(from Live/Work)

I did some RESEARCH into how managers develop new

or improve existing services(in short, how they were designed)

(After a pilot) Questionnaires sent to managers operating in the Service Sector in London

The Companies

Transport Charities Health Banking &

Insurance Public & Private

Services

THE RESULTSA new product strategy document.

Less than one third of respondents had seen a document that outlined a new product strategy within their organisation.

SERVICE DESIGN MANAGEMENTcan be defined as -

THE ORGANISATION OF THE PROCESS FOR DEVELOPING NEW SERVICES

So you need a process

Only 20% had a written design process

Market Research

Almost half do NO research for new services prior to their development.

Many rely on ‘me too’ development or even on ‘customer complaints’.

‘Attending cocktail parties’ is not an adequate investigation of the market!

Written specifications are the key controlling documents

Less than half the respondents had seen a specification in the past seven years

(and most of those who had, described an inadequate document).

Specifications are the best way to highlight problems,

interrelationships and contradictions

The Product Design Specification

LIKE PRODUCTS, THE EARLY STAGES OF THE PROCESS ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT.

Relatively early in the design activity the decisions taken will commit the operation to costs which will be incurred later

100%

0%

Percentage of final product cost

committed by the design

Percentage of design costs

incurred

Start of the design activity

Finish of the design activity

85% of design management decisions and 85% of finance

is committed in the first 15% of the process.

In the first 15% of the process

We do the main Market Research

We then need specifications.

3 out of the 4 main reasons for product and service failure are rooted in poor Market Research and poor Specifications

THE CONCLUSIONS FROM THIS RESEARCH

Service design is still not managed in an organised manner.

As such, most service organisations are not in adequate control of their new services

Only 17% had an effective process.

And most of these generated a greater turnover from recently developed services.

THE RESEARCH - 2

Questionnaires were sent to companies that had previously purchased the British Standard BS 7000 – 3 Guide to Managing Service Design

I found that the words we designers use

aren’t recognised by REAL people. Blueprinting. Brand Identity. Brand Architecture. Brand Value. Buy-in. Concept. Core Service. Corporate Identity. Critical Drivers. Data Mining. Design. Design Management. Design Process. Experience prototype. Innovation. Interdisciplinary Team. Internal Customers. Iteration. Launch Champions. Moments of Truth. Pilot Test. Points of Integration. Product Champion. Project Configuration. Robust Design. Scenario. Service. Stage Gateway. Stakeholder. Tangible Evidence. Touch-points. Trigger. Value System.

IF THEY DON’T UNDERSTAND THE WORDS HOW CAN THEY UNDERSTAND THE PROCESS?

SO HOW ARE SERVICES DIFFERENT FROM

MANUFACTURED PRODUCTS?

A lot can be found in the definitions of a service.

‘It is very easy to be different, but very difficult to be better’.

Jonathan Ive, Head of Design, Apple Computer Inc. 2002

Innovation is more easily accepted in the service sector – there is less of an existing infrastructure to shift.

BUT ENGINEERS HAVE A LOT OF TECHNIQUES THAT CAN

BE APPLIED.

Consider J.I.T. in the service sector – it works better

In manufacturing work-in-progress ties up space and money

But it doesn’t complain. In a service it is people waiting – usually in comfortable surroundings

In manufacturing, the worst type of inventory is finished goods – all the value has been added

In services, people go home

We also know more about-

Line of Balance & Value Analysis

We also know more about Quality- here a truly ‘to your

door’ minicab service

We engineering designers can be weak when dealing with people. ARE CUSTOMERS HAPPY WITH THE SERVICE THEY GET?

We know that the BIG thing in service design is Blueprinting.

This turns a qualitative system into a production line

Plot the route that customers/patients go through when using the service

Also plot what is going on in parallel Find the ‘critical path’ through these Re-evaluate process Redefine the process with enhancing

ideas

‘Striving to be a pleasure to do business with’

but applied to internal customers

Started in a shed in December 2000 but growing quite fast

Growth through applying service design to the whole company

Cool Logistics have the largest dedicated Design & Qualification Lab in Europe.

At 6,500 sq ft the lab has 14 environmentally controlled chambers, 10 of which are ‘walk-in’.

They now have plants in England, Scotland and Singapore and the Czech plant will start manufacturing in February 2007

Another great service example

I don’t claim that what I say is absolutely right but it works for

me.

If you find other ideas that are better then use them