Open Access

Achim Kampker, Maximilian Lukas, Tobias Leiting, Philipp Jussen

• Industrial service providers deliver complex technical services (e.g. inspection, maintenance, repair, improvement, installation and turnarounds) for a wide range of technical assets in process industries such as the chemical industry. Due to the versatility of assets and industries, there is also a variety of the corresponding service offerings. The demand for a high service quality and the general cost pressure leads to the need of a more efficient and standardized design of the service processes. However, cost-benefit ratio related decisions regarding the questions where and how service processes should be standardized entail great challenges for small and medium-sized enterprises. This is because there is often a lack of understanding of cost savings through process standardization, which is caused by a lack of understanding of the correlations between process characteristics and process target values. Because of this, the goal of this paper is to develop a method for a quantitative evaluation of the cost-benefit ratio of process standardization measures. Within this method, the relevant service performance processes are selected first. Next, the process data will be recorded with the help of questionnaires. These are then analyzed by looking for correlations between the process characteristics and the process target values. Afterwards standardization measures are derived on the basis of these findings in order to improve deficit characteristics and thus target values. Finally, the method´s practical applicability is tested and validated by applying it to an industrial service in the chemical industry.