Using control theory to improve productivity of service systems

In recent years the trend towards service business is progressing rapidly throughout the world economics. Responding to the demands for service innovation and service productivity improvement, service science is emerging as a new research field that applies multi-disciplinary studies to service systems. In this paper we propose using control theory as a means to design service management solutions that are robust to system dynamics and uncertainty. We further present several control problems and challenges that are fundamental to service systems, and the opportunities of applying control theory to modeling service systems, controlling service resources, and monitoring service quality. Moreover, we demonstrate how control technologies can be applied to service systems through three case studies: (1) Quantifying the complexity and IT management, (2) dispatching consultants in service transition, and (3) monitoring service quality and variability. © 2007 IEEE.