Service Design

Challenge: 

• Operating rooms are increasingly designed as hybrid ones, with more than one discipline working simultaneously. Most often, imaging disciplines are directly involved, as this speeds up procedures and many modern surgical methods rely on live imaging 
• The existing operating table already roughly takes into account the requirements for the changed processes and procedures but has not been explicitly optimized to meet them 
• Likewise, processes and procedures make inadequate use of some operating table features, and it is uncertain why 
• The challenge is to understand processes and technology as a holistic service to patients and staff and to improve the interaction between the operating table and routines. Due to the high number of expensive staff and machinery, any improvement/acceleration of procedures is not only positive for patient health but also highly profitable 

Methodology 

• 2-week observation in operating rooms, accompanying surgeries, room preparation, and post-procedure. Observing the procedures 
• Conduct interviews with all stakeholders in contact with the operating table. Recording requirements and ideas, questioning observed behavior, recording pain points. 
• Create multiple customer journeys (as-is) 
• Derive personas that represent the user groups 
• Create an optimized holistic customer journey 
• Generation of suggestions for improvement and new technical requirements for the operating table 
• Economic evaluation of improved interoperability  

Results and added value 

• Design optimization of the operating table with a return-on-investment <1 year 
• Greatly improved understanding of how the product is used in practice 
• Answers to why some product features are not used 
• Input to improve product and service training. 

Challenge 

• China has caught up strongly technologically and can produce many electronic components of sufficient quality at a low cost 
• Standard business is migrating, and you have to constantly win new business, in some cases proactively, by approaching customers with ideas. Service is an important differentiation criterion here 
• Basically, you could serve many customers as an independent manufacturer. The only question is: with what? Where can we play to our strengths without running the risk of losing business to China? 

Methodology 

• Competency analysis: visit the production, interviews with personnel, presentation of process-related, technological and organizational competencies. Comparison of these competencies with competitors and a typical Chinese competitor. 
• Create “company personas” instead of regular personas 
• Presenting the service benefits in a typical customer journey 
• Working out the competitive advantages over the Chinese company persona 
• Generation of technological product potentials 

Result 

• Longlist of over 50 potential products that are based on the technological strengths of the electronics manufacturer play off the service strength and can thus also hold their own in international competition 
• Top 5 shortlist with mini business cases designed as sales blueprint (product idea, real target customer and contact, sales arguments, service approach)