Systems Thinking for Service Delivery Design: A Real Time Mass Customisation Model

Recent attempts have been witnessed in service science research to extend principles from mass customisation into the design of service delivery systems. This paper investigates a new form of service operations design, known as systems thinking, by studying its impact on the capability of the service delivery system to provide mass customized services on a real-time basis. Four case studies were conducted in UK private sector service organizations using semi-structured interviews with service directors, team leaders, and operational employees. Data were also supplemented through the means of observations and documents collection. The results indicate that systems thinking approach is an enabler for the delivery of a real-time mass customized services. Seven different factors have been found to affect the real-time mass customization capability of the service system. The value of this paper is the identification of an innovative design for service delivery system that can help companies to provide realtime mass customized services.