Standards for engineering services

New standards are needed to codify recent developments in thinking and emerging best practice in engineering services: those collaborative technical and engineering activities that contribute to a business service that is enabled by keeping complex, long-life engineering assets operational at minimum cost. Such services are illustrated by the engineering involved in what have been called "complex service systems" or "product-service systems" and need the engineering activity and resource to be integrated with the overall service provision eco-system. This means that engineers and engineering have a critical role to play within the overall service delivery system displaying new, integrated behaviors and complementary competencies to support the service paradigm. To support successful service outcomes, this requires a very different set of behaviors and processes to those prevalent in the traditional arcane and transactional approach of systems engineering or physical asset management. A new framework standard is proposed, together with guidance on the application of relevant existing process and technical standards, to support the build of best practice and innovation in this area of interest to servitized and servitizing manufacturers. (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V.