Service design blueprint approach incorporating TRIZ and service QFD for a meal ordering system: A case study

•This study applies a TRIZ-based systematic innovation to identify problem solving directions and opportunities.•This research develops structural service design based on integrated TRIZ, QFD, and blueprint approach.•The proposed modules enable a tight partnership with minimal management effort and interactions.•The solution offers enterprises an ordering model to enhance the flexibility of meal-production.

This study applied the cloud-based production service concept to form a scalable and interoperable ordering model for self-service restaurants. We developed and demonstrated a structural and empirical service design using an integration of TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving), service QFD (Quality Function Deployment), and service blueprint approaches. Problem-formulator was carried out to generate customer requirements in the problem definition phase. The combination of service QFD and TRIZ contradiction analysis were applied to derive service solutions. In the solution evaluation stage, cloud-based self-service ordering system was proposed and a blueprint of the new meal service is then presented. The proposed new service can enhance the flexibility of meal-production by immediately responding to ordering requests and enable a tight partnership between case company and staff canteen operators with minimal management effort. The contribution of this structural and empirical service design methodology can improve performance and competitiveness of service innovation. In general, the proposed cloud intelligent solutions, with an interactive menu and a cloud-based interoperable meal order system can be applied to other canteen meal services and even other businesses providing meal services.