Special Issue On Service Engineering: Human-Centered Service Design

Guest Editors
Takeshi Takenaka
Yoichi Motomura
Nobutada Fujii
Nariaki Nishino

Introduction

With rapid networking and globalization, it is more difficult to predict and control values of products and services. The values of services must be understood from various viewpoints: psychological, economical, and social. Although resent information technologies bring us large scale data such as sales, behaviors, and people’s interests, there is no well-established methodology to improve actual services and to create new services based on such data. Consequently, human-related factors and social interactions are receiving greater attention to establish a methodology of human-centered service design. Service engineering is a new research field to support actual services by integrating academic disciplines such as engineering, computer sciences, human sciences, and social sciences. Science and technology are expected to support actual services and to realize a sustainable society through the creation of new services.

Objective of the Special Issue

The objective of the special issue is to address recent challenges in industry and academia and to seek for a new methodology of human-centered service design. This issue focuses on various topics that support actual services (e.g., elucidation of consumer’s values and decision makings, modeling of human behaviors, optimization of service processes, and management of service businesses). Interdisciplinary approaches and academic-industrial collaborations will be encouraged.

Recommended Topics

Topics to be discussed in this special issue include (but are not limited to) the following: