A systematic approach to generate service model for sustainability

Sustainable development has occupied a vital position in the field of service design. Since it requires the linkage between economic value and environmental benefits, how to organize service models with social networks becomes a key issue. Related studies generally focus on reducing cost and waste through product-based services; organizational activities and policy-oriented services are relatively ignored. In addition, few methods are adopted to generate service concepts with operational techniques or principles. Hence, "feedback map" and "service flow modeling" are proposed in this paper to help decision makers build appropriate service models. These tools are integrated with existing methods and knowledge, making a systematic framework to handle the information flows in service design. A workshop with the experiment is carried out to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed approach. The results indicate that this framework provides comprehensive information and guidance to fit service activities to sustainable development. It also improves the cooperation across profit and non-profit sectors and different knowledge domains, assisting planners in exploring more possibilities of service types. Moreover, it considers not only product development but also relative strategies or actions for sustainability. It appears that this approach is applicable to deal with complicated situations involving multiple service participants.