Service science: At the intersection of management, social, and engineering sciences

Abstract

Service industries comprise roughly 75 percent of the gross domestic product of developed nations. To design and operate service systems for today and tomorrow, a new type of engineer must be educated, one who focuses on services rather than manufacturing. Such an engineer must be able to integrate three sciences—management, social, and engineering science—in the analysis of service systems. Within the context of the Center for Engineering Systems Fundamentals, a research center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, we discuss how newly emerging service systems require such a three-way integrated analysis. We deliberately select some nonstandard services, because many business services, such as supply chains, have been studied extensively.