The Influence of the Customer in Service Production

Abstract

Increasing productivity in product-service systems is a vital success factor for industrialized economies and individual businesses. The service production is typically described as an integrated value chain setting, in which the provider and the customer are co-creators. This paper embraces a characteristic curve model in order to illustrate the influence of the customer on the productivity of service production. The characteristic curves are derived from a system dynamics simulation model for a synchronized takt-based service production. In conclusion this research leads to designs recommendations for service production systems in order to reduce lead times and increase adherence to delivery dates. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2014.