Utilizing QFD in creation of a new industrial service concept

The main purpose of this study is to support the generation of a new service concept in B2B environment during the early stages of project development for capital investment. This concept will aim at creating additional value for the clients and satisfying their requirements better. The focus is on the first three phases of plant life-cycle engineering in the mining and metallurgical industries. During the research the interdependencies of the identified explicit and tacit customer wishes and the technical characteristics of services were reviewed and the related operational processes were proposed. The theoretical part describes the importance of industrial services in the business context as well as the aspects of their quality and value creation. The methodology of this study is based on the formalized method - Quality Function Deployment - that is selected as a most suitable tool for concept development. The empirical part includes an in-depth single case study, which follows the SQFD (Service QFD) logic.