Philosophical fundations for a Services Systems

Approach

« iSamsara : for a Services Systems Engineering thanks to a Mereological

and Hypergraph approach »

Paris – June 2012, 9th

Florie Bugeaud

Extracted from PhD thesis (defended in July 2011):

MAIN ISSUES

� Initial topic :

Creation of a business processes repository for business customers in the service sector.

� Context :

« Opportunities research » step within a telecom operator design process : « innovators » try to

imagine and conceive adapted solutions for customers (case studies : diabetics telemonitoring,

videoconf. in a family)

(Bugeaud, 2011)

� Main issues for the telecom operator:

� Better understanding of the service situations that are experienced by customers

� Maximizing the number of ideas / opportunities

� Reducing the risks of a non-market adjustment

� Positioning themselves in relation to the Services Science

� Addressed problems and proposed solutions:

� Complexity of the notion of « service » (= scientific lock)

� Redefinition and formalization of the concept of service

� Lack of understanding between the various actors of the innovation process and belated

interest for the customer experience (= operational lock)

� Creation of a methodological framework for the opportunities research step

� Difficult understanding of a « virtual reality » (services situations as they are experienced by

customers, in various dimensions: economic, cognitive, emotional, technologic, material etc.)

Collaboration

Process

� An overused and not well positioned concept:

Service

Innovation

Functionality

Product

Activity

Relation

Sector

� A simplified definition based on the customers’ rol e:

(Bun, 2008)

� An « self-centered » vision within enterprises:

� Towards a Services Engineering problematic at an abstract level and relational perspective:

- (re) specification of the service?- model to account for its heterogeneity and dynamicity?- methods and tools to support the actors’ cooperation and creativity?

Re-conceptualization of the service , modeling and simulation to promote cooperation and creativity upstream of the services design process of a

telecom operator

CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

� Observation and locks:

Service as a social relation, as a set of characteristics, as

a good, as a functionality, etc.

� Even if perspectives are differents, we always define the service through its contents / its substance

without considering its dynamic nature, its various interactions…

� Polysemy, complexity, various kinds of questioning, little recognition of use/usage, structured driving

of the innovation, difficult cooperation, few working environments ...

(Gadrey, 2003)

(Bugeaud, 2011)

� Emergence of the notion of « service system » - SSME :

« a value-coproduction configuration of

people, technology, other internal and external service systems, and shared information »

(Spohrer et al., 2007)

� Systemic view: neither a commodity nor a functionality

� Key characteristics: heterogeneity, dynamicity and value creation

� Positioning:

� “Intermediary object" (Vinck) to build the service and support the actors’ coordination

� “Operational object" to describe the services’ interactions and underlying transactions, and to consider the implementation of e-services

� Questions: How to represent it? Calculate it? Simulate it?

� Focus of the notion of « service relation » :� Particular form of the producer-consumer relation (Bensahel,et al., 2001)

� New mode of coordination between actors / agents :

� Generalization as the predominant social relation

� Confusion of the commercial, social, public/private areas

� Key component of the definition and design of products / services

� Birth of dynamic and performative phenomenon:

DY

NA

MIC

Relation of circulation

Distributed activity

Sensory experience

Adapté de (Tixier, 2001)

� Back to the minimal service phenomenology:

� Awareness that there is a lack / a need

� Separation of the client / user and a "piece" of himself

� Request for help and getting in touch with a supplier

� Transfer of the "object to fix 'the client to the supplier

� Application of skills by the supplier and co-production with the customer

� Transformation of the “service object" and quasi-simultaneous consumption

� Reappropriation by the customer

PHILOSOPHICAL

FOUNDATIONS

� Multidisciplinary background:

Phenomenology (Hegel, Husserl, etc.) :

• Perception of the objects / of the reality as heterogeneous phenomena

• Primacy of the human activity and experience rather than the substance

• Importance of relations of dependency and relation of fundation

� Multidisciplinary background:

Dynamic structuralism (Piaget, Greimas, etc.) :

• Definition of the structure as a dynamic system / a system of transformations (entity with internal dependences)

• Rules on the composition, association, dissociation, transformation

• Characteristics of: totality, transformations et auto-régulation

� Multidisciplinary background:

Process philosophy (Whitehead, Rescher, etc.) :

• Opposition to the traditional paradigm of the substance

• Perception of the reality and the human experience as a set of movements / events / developments and their alternatives

• Horizontally interconnected processes and vertically composed of micro-processes

� Multidisciplinary background:

Holism (Husserl, Whitehead, Leśniewski) :

• Definition of the theory of the collective class instead of distributive class

• Perception of the reality as clusters / assemblages / heaps of micro elements

• Definition of the mereological sum and product (as well as key operations)

• Sometimes combined with the “topology” (Varzi, Casati) with the notions of neighborhood and frontiers/borders

� Multidisciplinary background...

Phenomenology

Dynamic structuralism

Process philosophy

Holism

Dynamic phenomenon emerging from the coordination or linking of heterogeneous entities

Agencement / arrangement of autonomous objects which existence is conditioned by the alliances or relationships they form between them, by constantly changing their shape during chains of

possible “products-resources conversions”

� ...for a new definition of the concept of service:

� Implications :

objects / things categories + transcendental / a priori logic (Aristote, Kant)���� flow / process that are nested and interconnected + immanent logic

semantic structuralism���� dynamic structuralism (Petitot, 1999)

hierarchies / structured and homogeneous totalities� relational “part-whole”, connectivity system, heter ogeneity

(the elements arrive, transform themselves, connect themselves, dissociate, etc. within a more macro entity)

Critique of the traditional metaphysics

Questioning the existing models of service

conceptual models = static view

behavioral models = rigid and operational approach

absence of certain dimensions

� It resonates among the concepts and formalizations of "action networks": narrative course of Greimas, rhizome of Deleuze, actor-network of Latour (see the PhD thesis of Delalonde C.), etc.

� Multi-Agents Systems : interesting characterization of agents as autonomous and interactive agents but agents are ≠ from active entities that are not anthropomorphic beings (decision unit featuring

performances, etc.) and whose unique purpose is to connect itself with other (shape change through mediation)

Technical environments are not adapted

Proposition of a new model: the « SERVICIAL AGENCEME NT »

constructed thanks to the mathematical approach of the SIMPLICIAL COMPLEXES

based on the notion of HYPERGRAPHE and the characteristics of multidimensionality, adjacency and symmetry relationships between elements

� Close to the idea of « configuration of heterogeneous elements » advocated by SSME (« specific arrangements of people and technologies take actions that provide value for

others » (Spohrer, 2008)) and the notion of « arrangement of parts » advocated by Simons (Richard et al., 2010)

� Observation and modeling of the movements behind the forces that change the « spectrum of the phenomenon »: network as a means to make visible the dynamic

Building of the proof of concept of a “servicial age ncements” modeling and simulation environment : iSamsara

METHODOLOGICAL and PRACTICAL

FRAMEWORK

AnnotationExtraction et

interconnexion

Clara habite à Marseille, elle

contacte ses parents et son

frère pour planifier la

prochaine réunion familiale.

Son frère est dans sa chambre,

devant son ordinateur. Dès

que le ser

Importation

Conversions

Documents

Connexion

Sélection

Calculs

trajectoires

Connexions

simpliciales

Calcul

structure

Ontologies

Designers

Entités actives vides et

autonomes

Entités actives

(Bugeaud, 2011)

Point of articulation Isthme

Structural holeComplex node

(Bugeaud, 2011)

Case Case Case Case studiestudiestudiestudie::::

– Telepresence

– Steps:

(Bugeaud, 2011)

– Extract from the results:

(Bugeaud, 2011)

BENEFITS

� Benefits for the telecom operator:

� A reference model and a new approach that have to be integrated within the actors’ practices of innovation in order to support their thinking face to services situations

� Around twenty published papers (conferences, workshops and journals) during the thesis

� Expected scientific / theoretical benefit :

� Des perspectives d’approfondissement

� A formalization of the concept of "Service System" through the relationship, activity and experience (interest of the community SSME and knowledge engineers)

� A new type of heterogeneity and dynamicity oriented model: “agencements” (here servicial)

� A lot of perspectives

QUESTIONS

florie.bugeaud@nekoe.fr