Information Needs in Service Systems - A Framework for Integrating Service and Manufacturing Business Processes

Customer solutions comprise services and physical goods as integrated value propositions. Understanding the customers´ point of view on value creation and integrating customers as co-creators of value into service processes are important research fields in Service Science Management and Engineering. At the same time, a lack of investigation of the providers´ points of view on offering and fulfilling integrated value propositions can be ascertained. To compensate for this deficit, our paper investigates four different integrated value propositions in the B2B-market to study how an integration of service and manufacturing processes can be accomplished by sharing information in service systems. Based on in- depth business process analyses, information needsarising from the integration of service processes and manufacturing processes are identified and systematized in a conceptual framework. From a service research point of view, this framework provides a fundament to build on in consecutive qualitative and empirical investigations as well as for designing IT artifacts.