Service Design - Challenges in Special Machine Construction

In special machine construction and especially in the design of large-scale plants, special points must be taken into account in a service design project that has an increase in efficiency and standardisation in mind. Great individualisation of products due to widely varying customer requirements and the resulting variety of constructive solutions quickly lead to an unmanageable number of variants and new designs with the associated advantages and disadvantages.

On the one hand, the diversity of variants represents a cost factor that should not be underestimated, which affects all performance and support processes, but at the same time it is an expression of the company's own know-how and performance capabilities as well as a means of optimally satisfying customer wishes. This means a simultaneous competitive advantage and disadvantage. On the one hand, product individualisation or individualised service provision creates greater customer benefit and better differentiation from competitors. In addition, a stronger customer loyalty is made possible by special individual designs, which is essential for the spare parts business and the placing of follow-up orders, which is important in special machine construction.

Challenges and causes

The question that arises, however, is the cause-effect relationship. Is the diversity of variants a necessary component of the company's success or merely the result of a lack of standards? Particularly in company structures that have grown over many years with different interests, perspectives and argumentation bases of the departments involved in the process of service production, the answer to this question is not as simple as it appears at first glance. In addition to external causes, which can mainly be traced back to the conditions and developments of the sales market and are often difficult for the company to influence, internal causes in particular play a major role in mechanical engineering.

These causes should be explained here, as their consideration is necessary for a better understanding of the difficulties in standardising service elements. Situational or order-dependent solution concepts, which primarily focus on a quick solution to a problem, are particularly widespread in special machine construction. This means that an order-neutral and forward-looking design methodology only plays a subordinate role and the transferability of solution concepts is not examined to a sufficient degree.
The process chain of service provision can also be cited as a cause for a proliferation of variants. When preparing an offer, concepts from previous orders are used in accordance with the customer's wishes due to insufficient standardisation, which are then modified and manufactured through constructive adaptations and additional developments. The danger with such an approach is that one literally "goes round in circles" and often only a purely order-specific added value is created, which may not be reflected at all or only to an insufficient extent in subsequent orders. Such problems are exacerbated by the overweighting of sales interests, as many customer-specific solutions are offered without the necessary cost/benefit assessments.

However, a lack of communication and access to relevant information is the main problem in the service area. Both across departments and within the design and development department, the lack of uniform guidelines, standards geared to the service business and inadequate description of the product structure lead to individual designers developing their own approach instead of establishing a uniform procedure through the exchange of experience and its documentation, at least in the area of design methodology. The wealth of experience available is thus not optimally utilised. It is precisely the availability of information and its organised exchange, i.e. efficient knowledge management, that is of enormous importance for the success of a service design project.

Opportunities and risks

Variant diversity can be a means of optimally satisfying market needs. However, if it is the result of the causes described above, this does not correspond to the principles of sustainable value creation and can therefore not be in the interest of a competing company. Each variant must have its economic or market strategy justification. 

Standardisation in the sense of service design means "the one-time solution of a repetitive technical or organisational process with the optimal means of the state of the art known at the time of the creation of the standard by all those interested in it. It is thus a technical and economic optimisation that is always limited in time." 

This definition of standardisation shows that standardisation projects also represent a simultaneous optimisation, which is why this definition is particularly suitable for service design. In this context, it is also important not to limit this view to a single component level and service component, but to refer to the entire process of service creation or to design it with the help of all those participating in it and also to integrate methodical approaches. If, as is often the case in special-purpose machinery manufacturing, the use of standardised components is not appropriate, a uniform methodology can at least be defined for the process of developing a customised solution. This situation is referred to as Structured individualisation referred to as

Advantages and disadvantages of standardisation in service design

After the causes for an excessive number of variants and the resulting difficulties of standardisation have been worked out, especially in special machine construction, possible advantages and disadvantages of standardisation are to be looked at again more closely at this point in order to create starting points for a later cost/benefit evaluation of standardisation and optimisation measures with regard to the optimal design of the service elements.

The advantages and disadvantages mentioned here are only a selection and the table does not claim to be complete and could probably be added to in either direction. Rather, it is important to make clear that a standardisation project is always a double-edged sword and that it is rather the way in which it is implemented that is decisive. This applies to both physical products and intangible service elements.

The primary hope is that the use of standardised elements in design and service will reduce costs while at the same time increasing performance. It is easy to understand that when standardised components and service modules are used, the effort for work preparation and production, but also for installation and maintenance, is lower and this leads to a reduction in throughput times. By reducing redundancies, i.e. overlapping and unnecessary repetition of activities, rationalisation effects are to be realised, freeing up resources and capacities that can be invested in further development and innovation activities. In this way, an improvement in quality is achieved, as the concept of continuous improvement in service can be implemented more effectively with the help of internal standards.

If the implementation is not in line with the market or the customer, a standardisation concept may offer many advantages on paper, but these cannot be realised because the concept does not address the customer's needs in a necessary way. Especially in the case of technological services for capital goods, it is important to be able to offer the optimal performance parameters from the customer's point of view. Customer integration already in the development phase up to joint project planning must be taken into account above all in the process design. It should be noted, however, that the disadvantages listed are only an obstacle if they are perceived as such by the customer. This means if the standardisation or structuring concept has too rigid a framework to give the customer the feeling of an individual service provision. The goal must therefore be to find a suitable way not only to bring about a simple reduction in the number of variants and service modules, but at the same time to expand one's own competitive position and increase customer satisfaction. For this purpose, a consistent concept of complexity and knowledge management must be designed.

Summary

It remains to be said that the use of standardisation in service design is part of a comprehensive knowledge and complexity management, which also includes structured individualisation. Furthermore, standardisation projects must not serve an end in themselves, but must be measured against the business efficiency criterion. This means that the resulting benefit should be greater than the effort required, whereby factors that cannot be directly measured in monetary terms must also be included in the evaluation of the benefit.