A conceptual framework for service modelling in a network of service systems

Abstract

Although the service sector has dominated the modern economies, there is still a little research on service modelling, especially on new models, methods and frameworks. In this paper, we present a conceptual framework for service modelling in a network of service systems based on network configuration and shared information. We study firstly the needs for the conceptual framework and present the related works in literature. Then we propose and analyse the architecture of our framework that consists of three different levels: the Service level concerned with service operation, the Service system level concerned with service creation, and the Network of service systems level concerned with service specification. A case study of this framework shows that our approach is pertinent and efficient. This paper also opens new directions for future research in service design and innovation. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.