Holistic Trinity of Services Sciences: Management, Social, & Engineering Sciences

Abstract

Services industries comprise about 75% of the economy of developed nations. To design and operate services systems for today and tomorrow, we need to educate a new type of engineer who focuses not on manufacturing but on services. Such an engineer must be able to integrate 3 sciences - management, social and engineering – into her analysis of services systems. Within the context of a new research center at MIT – CESF (Center for Engineering Systems Fundamentals) – we show how newly emerging services systems require such a 3-way holistic analysis. We deliberately select some non-standard services, as many business services such as supply chains have been studied extensively.