This report documents the master’s thesis “Development of a service model for a consulting engineering company in the maritime business” and deals with the testing and development of a methodological approach to idea generation and conceptualization of ideas for a company who sells services. The work is conducted in collaboration with Lloyd’s Register ODS who offers advice on noise & vibration, machine dynamics and structural dynamics in the maritime business. The thesis is conducted in relations to PROTEUS, which is a research project that engages in supporting the development of product/service-systems in the maritime business in Denmark. Lloyd’s Register ODS is a partner company in PROTEUS.
The Customer Activity Cycle-model has been used as basis for idea generation. The model provides an overview of a customer’s needs as well as the offerings a company provides that fulfils these needs. An investigation of Lloyd’s Register ODS and its customers has been the foundation for setting up the model.
Three different conceptualization methods have been tested and assessed in order to determine their abilities for conceptualising services. The PSS Morphology was chosen for further testing and development. The purpose of the method is to develop a chosen idea for a new business activity further through exploration, using a number of characteristic variations of a product/service-system. It was a goal to develop the PSS Morphology into being applicable for services. The Customer Activity Cycle-model and the PSS Morphology have been tested during two workshops with participants from respectively PROTEUS and Lloyd’s Register ODS which has made it possible to assess their usability. The testing showed that the Customer Activity Cycle-model worked well as a basis for idea generation but also that the outcome depends on the participant’s knowledge about the company. In addition the Customer Activity Cycle-model must be linked with creative methods for development of ideas in order to work properly.
After having tested the original PSS Morphology with PROTEUS the PSS Morphology was developed into a service oriented morphology and a product/service-system oriented morphology. These two new morphologies showed to be highly suited for conceptualizing services and worked well as basis for creating a discussion of the dimensions that have to be considered when developing new business ideas and fitting them to a specific company. The result of the project has been that there can be drawn up recommendations on how the methods can be used in a company to generate and conceptualize services. Additionally there is also given directions on how to develop the new morphologies further.