Complex Engineering Service Systems: Concepts and Research (Decision Engineering)

For manufacturers of complex engineering equipment, the focus on service and achieving outcomes for customers is the key to growth. Yet, the capability to provide service for complex engineered products is less understood.

Taking a trans-disciplinary approach, Complex Engineering Service Systems covers various aspects of service in complex engineering systems, with perspectives from engineering, management, design, operations research, strategy, marketing and operations management that are relevant to different disciplines, organisation functions, and geographic locations. The focus is on the many facets of complex engineering service systems around a core integrative framework of three value transformations – that of material/equipment, information and people.

Complex Engineering Service Systems is the outcome of the EPSRC/BAE Systems S4T (Service Support Solutions: Strategy and Transition) research programme of 10 universities and 27 researchers, which examined how high-value manufacturers of complex engineering products adapt to a multi-partnered environment to design and deliver value in a service system.

Complex Engineering Service Systems aims to be the main source of knowledge for academics and professionals in the research and practice of contracting, managing, designing, leading, and delivering complex engineering service systems. The book takes a value-based approach to integrating equipment and human factors into a total service provision. In doing so, it aims to advance the field of service systems and engineering.

Irene Ng is the Professor of Marketing Science at the University of Exeter Business School, the ESRC/Advanced Institute of Management Research (AIM) Service Fellow and Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge. Professor Ng was a business practitioner for more than 10 years before switching to an academic career. During her time in industry she occupied a number of senior positions rising to become CEO of the SA Tours group of companies (Singapore, Malaysia, China and UK) and founded Empress Cruise Lines, a company with an annual turnover of USD250m.

Irene’s research interest lies in the concept of value: understanding, delivering, designing, pricing, contracting and innovating based on value, as well as delivering value in complex service systems. She has published in numerous international journals in the domains of engineering, management, marketing, information systems, economics, education and sociology and she is the author of the book The Pricing & Revenue Management of Services: A Strategic Approach. She is also a consultant and advisor to several organizations in the UK, Italy, Sweden, South Africa, Singapore and Malaysia.

Glenn Parry received his PhD from the University of Cambridge and has worked as a Strategy Consultant for L.E.K. Consulting and as a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Warwick and University of Bath. His research in the areas of transformation, resource, through-life-cost and metrics is characterised by a strong practical focus. He has worked with leading companies including Airbus, Atkins Global, BAE Systems, Balfour Beatty, BMW, Daimler and Rolls-Royce. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Enterprise Transformation and is co-editor of the automotive book Build To Order: The Road to the 5-Day Car, published by Springer. Glenn is now Principal Lecturer in Strategy and Operations Management at Bristol Business School, part of the University of the West of England.

Duncan McFarlane is Professor of Service and Support Engineering and heads the Distributed Information & Automation Lab at the University of Cambridge. His research interests include automated identification systems and their application; industrial automation systems; product and service information systems; manufacturing control and automation; systems integration; reconfigurable systems design; distributed control systems; information valueing; and the role of engineering in services. He has a PhD in Control Engineering from the University of Cambridge and his latest book was Reconfigurable Process Control Systems, written with N. Chokshi and published by Springer.

Peter J Wild is a research associate in the Psychology and Communication Technology (PaCT) Lab, Department of Psychology, University of Northumbria. He is currently employed to build and manage links between PaCT and the School of Design focused on service design. He holds an MSc in Human Computer Interaction from the University of London. He has held postdoc research positions at Cambridge University's Institute for Manufacturing, on the S4T project and in the Engineering Design Centre on the TSB funded Integrated Products and Services project with Rolls-Royce. He has also held positions at the University of Bath's Innovative Design and Manufacturing Research Centre, and Department of Computer Science. He has contributed numerous papers to journals, conferences and workshops in computing, design, manufacturing, and services research, and has contributed a co-authored chapter to the forthcoming book Service Science Reference, edited by Claudio Pinhanez and Wendy Murphy.

Paul Tasker is Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor in Integrated System Design at Cranfield University and the University of Kent, and a Principal Industrial Fellow with the University of Cambridge Institute for Manufacturing. Having held various engineering management roles in the defence sector, in both government and industry, his main interest is in the practical application of service research. He initiated and led the BAE Systems/EPSRC S4T programme on which this book is largely based and now acts as independent chair of the EPSRC Knowledge Transfer Account (KT-Box). He is a practicing Chartered Engineer and a member of the Royal Corp of Naval Constructors.