Tatsunori Hara

A CAD system for service innovation: integrated representation of function, service activity, and product behaviour

Manufacturers are required to supply customers with services beyond material products. In this context, the engineering target that needs to be analysed and designed is shifting from simple products to product–service systems (PSS). Although there is considerable literature on PSS, design methodologies and computerised tools have not been introduced. We have been researching service/product engineering to develop PSS since 2002. This paper presents a computer-aided design (CAD) system for service innovation using engineering, management, and marketing disciplines. We describe our service model implemented on the CAD software and demonstrate through an example. We extend the service blueprint for the marketing field to include product behaviour by using physical features from the engineering field. The view model, which describes the functional structure of service for an RSP (Receiver State Parameter), works as a bridge between product behaviour and service activity. Our framework clearly illustrates the relationships between humanware, hardware, and software in services. Therefore, using our CAD tool, managers, marketers, and engineers can collaborate to improve existing services or to design a new service.

CT-Planner4: Toward a More User-Friendly Interactive Day-Tour Planner

It is often difficult for novice people to make a tour plan for a tight schedule. Hence, we have developed a computer-aided tour planner, which enables the user to design a tour plan with the system in a collaborative manner. This paper introduces its latest version, CT-Planner4, which becomes accessible via Internet and is improved to achieve more user-friendliness. CT-Planner4 mainly targets foreigners and is expected to stimulate their hidden/unattended needs of plan consultation. Our two user tests with international students and foreigners living abroad, and another interviews with tourist advisors substantiates the practicality of CT-Planner4. Finally, we propose the application of its user log to marketing analysis.

Cost Evaluation Method for Service Design Based on Activity Based Costing

As our economy matures, customers have begun to demand more services in addition to just industrial products. To address this problem, we require a novel engineering methodology, called Service Engineering (SE). SE aims to create value by combining services and products. SE focuses more on increasing customer satisfaction, while general service developers need to take into account economic cost in order to be successful in business. This paper proposes a method to evaluate service from the both viewpoints of customer importance and economic cost. The proposed method is verified through its application to a practical case.

A Lifetime Supporting Framework for Cloud Applications

This paper proposes a framework, which integrates the development and operation environments for cloud applications. Adopting perspectives on lifecycle management, the framework is equipped with tools and platforms, which seamlessly integrate lifetime phases: requirement analysis, architecture design, application implementation, operation and improvement. These are predicated on theories in design engineering, enabling identification of constraints arising in the development process and of dependencies among functional modules. A case study shows the feasibilities of the design principles, and indicates possibilities for the framework to be an Application Platform as a Service (APaaS), which can form an eco-system of datacenter operators, systems integrators and application providers.

A Framework of Co-creating Business Values for IT Services

The IT industry traditionally offers system services to user companies. The services which integrate software and hardware products are geared toward product-based business models. However, with the emergence of cloud computing, users’ in-house systems and applications are virtualized on the net, and are replaced with ones provided through outsourcing services. The alternative systems will be combinations of service functions of their companies’ and of outsourcers’. This will relieve user companies from their legacy systems, allowing them to concentrate on their competence and to develop new business models effectively. In order to meet this trend, IT vendors should focus not only on the values of platform development but also on those of creating business opportunities. They need to share users’ business goals and collaborate with them to enhance their business values. This paper proposes a framework and supporting tools to co-create business values between IT vendors and clients through the business lifecycle, showing the results from partly applying them to the early stages of development of e-learning services.

Integrated Representation of Function, Service Activity, and Product Behavior for Service Development

Manufacturers are required to supply more services to customers in addition to material products. Although there are many literatures on the Product–Service System (PSS), computerized tools for this system have not been established until now. In this paper, we aim to present a modeling method and computer-aided design (CAD) tool to combine function, product, and service activity for the development of service offerings like the PSS. In our method, product and service activities are designed in parallel according to customer value. A service blueprint in the marketing field is extended to include the product behavior by utilizing the physical features in the engineering field. A view model, which describes the function structure of services for a Receiver State Parameter (RSP), connects the product behavior and service activity. The above method is implemented on a CAD system to analyze, evaluate, and design services. Our tool is applied through an example presented herein. Our model can work as a hub for existing studies in marketing and traditional engineering fields. Using them, the relationships between product behavior and service activity can be designed around the idea of customer value.Copyright

Proposal of a Measuring Method of Customer’s Attention and Satisfaction on Services

Now a day, with the emerging growth of the service industry, manufacturing companies are convinced that their products must be strengthened with service. Thus, we have developed a new discipline called Service Engineering that aims to produce a novel method to design service from an engineering viewpoint. In this paper, the authors propose an evaluation model that enables service designers to measure receivers’ satisfaction. The authors proposed the “Satisfaction — Attribute Value Function” as an evaluation model that suits man’s behavior. Applying to an example, the result of our method had richer information than the result of conjoint analysis.

Mobile Robot Exploration by Using Environmental Boundary Information

We present the method of exploration using environmental boundary information for an indoor map generation problem of a mobile robot. We introduce an exploration method by (i) integration of the exploration method with Reaction-Diffusion Equation on a Graph (RDEG) and connected components labeling and (ii) a replanning framework in updating exploration plan for the currently obtained sensor information. Our approach has been implemented in simulation environments and has been compared with two existing methods: frontier-based exploration method and zig-zag method. The results demonstrate the efficiency of our approach over others. Lastly, the approach was implemented and tested on an actual robot, demonstrating its efficiency in a real-world situation.

Modeling and designing aircraft taxiing patterns for a large airport

At large airports, aircraft takeoff and land simultaneously on multiple runways. As a result, taxiing is a complex and, at times, lengthy process. Planning for aircraft taxiing is an essential design element for the expansion of runways, taxiways, and terminals. Unnecessary taxiing should be reduced. In this study, we develop a taxiing model and calculate the taxiing time. We observed aircraft traffic patterns and listened to the communication of air traffic controllers (ATCs) in order to develop a taxiing model. The developed model was applied to Narita International Airport. We begin by estimating the time required for taxiing at Narita International for 2014. Next, we propose two strategies to reduce the taxiing time. The first strategy involves changes in departure times with controlled intervals between them. In this strategy, the average taxiing time is reduced by 16.5%. The other strategy requires adjustments in the time from the aircraft departure from the terminal to the start of taxiing. In this strategy, the maximum taxiing time is reduced by 11.5%, and the intervals between the terminal departures and taxiing were more uniform.

Toward Establishing Design Methods for Cloud-Based Business Platforms

‘Cloud computing’ enables system integrators to develop business platforms from existing system by combining software and hardware functions provided by virtualized servers and resources. This functional substitution is the essence of cloud computing and it is the embodiment of the concept of Product-Service Systems in the IT industry. Bearing this in mind, this paper proposes design methods for cloud-based business platforms. By applying Axiomatic Design, Design Structure Matrix and Design-for-X, these design methods can be streamlined, thereby identifying better alignment/separation of functionalities and allocating them to physical servers and resources. Accordingly, the methods will facilitate the shift to service-based business in the IT industry.