A novel design methodology for services to increase value combining service and product based on service engineering

In order to pursue sustainability, commercial activities between the supply and demand sides must be somehow changed. In the context of eco-design, producers must need a much bigger framework than is available in a bunch of current eco-design techniques. This calls for establishing a new discipline. The authors are carrying out a new discipline called Service Engineering (SE). Based on SE, this paper aims at proposing a novel eco-design methodology of service toward sustainable production and consumption. For the sake of this, a methodology of modeling and designing services is presented Then, it is proved to be effective through an application. In SE, positive and negative changes of customers are modeled as value and cost, respectively. In addition, the model to describe a target customer is provided for grounding the identified value. A design methodology including the identification of value with realization structures is also provided Furthermore, SE allows designing services in parallel with products. In the application to service redesign of an existing hotel in Italy, it was demonstrated that the presented methods and tools facilitate designers adding new value like the view of outside through a window in energy-saving structure. It was also proved to deal with both products and services through generating a solution called "cash-back per non-wash" system for washing towels.