Open Access

Benedikt Moser, Philipp Jussen, Achim Kampker

• Global manufacturing companies currently face an increasingly turbulent economic environment known as the "VUCA-world" (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity). After the transformation of many companies from product to solution providers in the last 15-20 years, the focus of many corporate change processes is on digital solutions such as data-driven services. In this context, service development is of particular relevance for industrial services. Companies develop digital strategies and try to maximize the added value for their customers, by offering, for example, smart services. They are based on smart products, which are connected to the internet, interact with their environment and gather environmental data. The collected data sets are combined with other easily accessible information and processed into so-called smart data. Based on this smart data, smart services are designed. They can be defined as individualized combinations of physical and digital services. They generate added value for providers and customers and offer context-related and demand-oriented value via digital platforms. The contribution of this paper to this research field of data-driven services is a service engineering approach for industrial smart services. Since the 1990s, service engineering has established itself as a systematic process for the development of services. Currently existing service engineering processes are based on engineering science and business model innovation toolsets. However, the increasing digital components in service engineering reveal deficits in the direct application of the classical methods of service engineering to smart services. We suggest that the successful development and implementation of smart services requires a more agile service engineering process. Studies show that companies who develop services successfully (top-performer) act up to six times faster than those with less success (follower). They involve customers in the first running prototype of their digital service to increase customer centricity and focus their development activities on core functionalities of the service to reduce its development time and test it early with customers. To strengthen the successful development pf data-driven services in future industrial service development projects, this paper contributes to a more agile service engineering approach. Smart service engineering combines elements of linear phase models and implements agile and customer-centric findings to decrease the overall development time by focussing on core functionalities that offer a high value for customers. The paper focuses on the service development steps and presents strategic scenarios for smart service engineering. It presents the interaction and interconnection of different elements of smart services based on a case study research. In addition to this, it illustrates the implications of a customer-centric engineering approach and possible strategic decisions based on the customer feedback. The paper focuses on the successful application of the smart service engineering approach and its impact in a German medium-size company in the textile machine industry.