Towards a new service design approach assisted by computer tools: a typology of services and a post sale service case study in the automotive industry

This paper presents an approach for the service process design and service design. It suggests a service typology of a framework to study services and rests on a case study dealing with the post sale service, precisely, car preparation in the branches of a car manufacturer: Renault. As the customers are more and more demanding, competitiveness has to be increased, hence, there is a need for an appropriate service production system shortening service process design phases and considering service specificities such as its unpredictable process and the strength of qualitative criteria of performance. An approach fostering iterative testing before deployment, encouraging interfunctional collaboration and taking into account service characteristics is proposed and is based on tools, principally: business process and data modeling, flow simulation, behavioral simulation, and 3D visualization.