Dr -Ing Uwe Dombrowski

Dipl.-Wirtsch.-Ing Constantin Malorny

Lean After Sales Service -An opportunity for OEMs to ensure profits

Keywords: Lean Production Systems, Lean After Sales Service, Customer Service

Original equipment manufacturers (OEM) have recently recognized that offering after sales services enables higher revenues and profits (for example additional services, spare parts or accessories business). For this reason, OEMs have decided to step up efforts to improve or offer additional after sales services in order to achieve competitive advantages. Moreover, offering after sales services combined with primary products is an appropriate instrument to improve customer satisfaction and loyalty. Due to the increasing competitive pressure in the after sales service sector, methods and instruments have to be identified to sustain a profitable business area. In branch of production, the use of lean production systems turned out as a suitable application to secure and improve competitiveness, to reduce waste in production and to realize sustainable profits. Therefore, in this paper a methodical approach to transfer lean production system (LPS) principles to customer service as well as a qualitative applicability of the principles will be described. For transferring LPS principle to customer service, the reference guideline "VDI 2870 -Lean production systems" published by The Association of German Engineers is used.

Introduction

This paper focuses on customer service as one part of the after sales service whereas customer service is understood as support of the primary products [START_REF] Zeithaml | Services marketing -Integrating customer focus across the firm[END_REF]. Spare part management, another field of the after sales service, is especially associated with logistics, forecasts, demands and manufacturing. In this field of after sales service a lot of research activities has been performed including approaches of lean logistics but the transfer of lean principles to customer service or even the development of an lean after sales services system focusing on customer service has not been researched sufficiently yet.

To ensure the high profits resulting from after sales service (particularly the customer service), in this paper a guideline for transferring lean production system principles to service is presented. With the help of a lean after sales service-guideline, services can be improved and help to satisfy customers. As a result, lean after sales service improves the customer's feedback with regard to used services and therefore helps to strengthen customer loyalty and promote primary product sales [START_REF] Kastalli | Servitization: Disentangling the impact of service business model innovation on manufacturing firm performance[END_REF].

After Sales Service

Manufacturing enterprises have recently recognized that there is a huge economic potential of offering after sales services in addition to their primary products [START_REF] Mahmoodzadeh | A business process outsourcing framework based on business process management and knowledge management[END_REF]. This is recognizable by the high number of 60 % of manufacturing companies offering services and supports combined with goods in western countries [START_REF] Neely | Exploring the financial consequences of the servitization of manufacturing[END_REF]. These services have become a very successful sector of Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) because of being mainly responsible for the gained profits. Companies are able to generate more than 65 % of overall profits by offering services complementary to primary products. Beyond this, it is possible to realize EBIT margins over 10 %. On the contrary, the spare part business, former driver of after sales service, is dealing with declining revenues and profits. [START_REF] Berger | Strategy Consultants: think:act content -Evolution of service[END_REF] These profits can be generated not only when selling but also during the complete life cycle. But the major advantage of after sales services over primary product sales is the low influence of economic cycles and economic crises. [START_REF] Dombrowski | Zukunftsgerechte Gestaltung des After Sales Service[END_REF] Nevertheless, customer service sector deals with similar problems like the production sector. Customer's expectation is rising so that the quality of services has to be improved by the companies. But offered services still have to be cheaper than comparable offers. This results in revenue and competitive pressure. [START_REF] Allway | Shifting to Lean Service: Stealing a Page from Manufacturers' Playbooks[END_REF] Above this, customer loyalty as well as customer satisfaction has huge influence on revenues gained by OEM's after sales services which results in the improvement of the offered services [START_REF] Qi | Are customer satisfaction and customer loyalty drivers of customer lifetime value in mobile data services: a comparative cross-country study[END_REF].

Typically, offered services of OEMs are repair and spare part installation, commissioning, preventive maintenance, inspection, 24-hours-service-contracts, warranty and complaint management, modernization or upgrade of products and staff trainings [START_REF] Turunen | Organizing customer-oriented service business in manufacturing[END_REF], [START_REF] Saccani | Configuring the after-sales service supply chain: A multiple case study[END_REF]. This listing demonstrates that the customer service has several different areas of responsibility. In addition, OEMs are also faced with the problem that services are difficult to standardize as well as customize [START_REF] Wang | The Effect of Standardization and Customization on Service Satisfaction[END_REF]. Combined with an increasing number of variants of offered services and growth of service ranges [START_REF] Dombrowski | After Sales Service -Trends und Lösungsansätze -Ergebnisse einer Studie[END_REF], companies have to implement quality insurance as well as quality improvement sections reducing the profits and profitability [START_REF] Wang | The Effect of Standardization and Customization on Service Satisfaction[END_REF].

Lean production systems principle in service

For realizing a lean enterprise, business units such as development, production and sales & service need an implementation of lean principles [START_REF] Hoppmann | A Framework for Organizing Lean Product Development[END_REF]. Therefore, the guideline "lean production system" was created. Furthermore, principles taken from this guideline focusing on production and assembly were transferred to development [START_REF] Dombrowski | Systematic approach to adopt LPS principles in product development[END_REF]. Other units like sales & service still need a transformation or a guideline for implementing lean production system principles.

Lean production systems have their origin in lean production, Taylorism and innovative working arrangements [START_REF] Korge | Ganzheitliche Produktionssysteme -Konzepte, Methoden, Erfolgsfaktoren[END_REF]. LPS constitute a methodical guideline for enter-prises with the aim to focus all production processes on the customer. Furthermore, lean production systems strive for waste reduction and continuous improvement so that LPS-implementation can help to generate profits sustainably. [START_REF]VDI -Verein Deutscher Ingenieure: Lean production systems -Basic principles, introduction, and review[END_REF] To improve quality and increase transparency in production processes, LPS offer several principles, methods and tools. By implementing an individual developed production system companies are able to adapt and react to new market situations, customer expectations or challenging market conditions. Moreover, processes are transparent and it is possible to manufacture customer individual products high-qualitatively. [START_REF] Spath | Revolution durch Evolution[END_REF] Typical principles implemented in lean production systems are standardization, zero defects principle, flow principle, pull principle, continuous improvement process, employee orientation and management by objectives, avoidance of waste and visual management [START_REF]VDI -Verein Deutscher Ingenieure: Lean production systems -Basic principles, introduction, and review[END_REF], also explained and described in context of Toyota Production System respectively Lean Production.

The described objectives of lean production systems cover the same problem areas occurring in after sales services. Customers expect an excellent, individual service as well as individual support during operation of the product. At the same time, customers focus on cheap service performances, otherwise they change to a competitive service provider only specialized on offering services. To react to these customer requirements waste in service processes has to be reduced, service quality has to be improved and service delivery has to be adapted to the customer. [START_REF] Wang | The Effect of Standardization and Customization on Service Satisfaction[END_REF] Therefore, the hypothesis is based on the assumption that lean production system principles are transferable to after sales service. By realizing this transfer, lean production system principles provide an opportunity to meet these challenges and customer requirements.

Fig. 1. Lean After Sales Systems

First approaches show that it is possible to transfer LPS-principles to service sector [START_REF] Song | Effective toolbox for lean service implementation[END_REF]. For example, in financial or insurance sector the use of these principles and methods is practicable because of a high number of similar processes and activities. Other fields of lean application are food service sector [START_REF] Allway | Shifting to Lean Service: Stealing a Page from Manufacturers' Playbooks[END_REF], hospitals [START_REF] Wesemann | Ganzheitliches Krankenhaussystem (GKS) -Ein Organisationsmodell für Krankenhäuser[END_REF] or administration (e.g. controlling or accounting). These sectors include a high number of static processes which are characterized by high repetition rates and low diversity so that processes can be standardized and a flow of information or material is realizable. [START_REF] Laqua | Lean Administration[END_REF]

Lean After Sales Service

After Sales Service

Transferring LPS principles to customer service

As already described, LPS-principles are not only suitable for production but also for service sector. Therefore, in this section a methodical transfer of the LPS principles is presented including identification of relevant influence factors, analysis and structuring of possible LPS principles. Moreover, individual adjustment and integration into daily routine are briefly described.

Identification of relevant influence factors and basic conditions in service

The need of the customer has to be identified so that all processes in customer service can be aligned to their requirements [START_REF] Allway | Shifting to Lean Service: Stealing a Page from Manufacturers' Playbooks[END_REF]. Here, every field of customer service includes own influence factors. For example, customers expect a fast repair of their products, e.g. their cars, and short waiting times at the repair station reception. In case of maintenance of machine tools, the down time has to be minimized and the maintenance process has to be designed effectively.

On service provider side, an analysis of business processes has to be performed to overview all relevant service activities. For example, process mapping or value stream mapping are applicable methods to represent all processes and connection between units or employees in a transparent way. With regard to high numbers of different tasks, varying lead times and fluctuating demand, problems in service processes can be identified. These processes and service-individual challenges build a cluster of influence factors concerning the customer service. On this basis, it is possible to identify possible LPS principles that can be transferred.

Analysis of possible use of lean production system principles

The identification of influence factors and basic condition is necessary for transferring LPS principles to customer service. It is possible that identified principles are not directly adaptable for each after sales service field. This is based on wide range of service variants (e.g. huge number of different repairs) including varying lead times and uncertain demand characteristics [START_REF] Johansson | Industrial service profiling: Matching service offering and process[END_REF]. But generally, the implementation of LPS principles is possible. In particular, the principles standardization and continuous improvement possess high potential for an implementation in customer service. [START_REF] Dombrowski | After Sales Service -Trends und Lösungsansätze -Ergebnisse einer Studie[END_REF] However, as mentioned before, standardization is appropriate for repetitive processes especially taking placing in flow production. These repetitive processes can be found in administrative tasks of the customer service. Therefore, the implementation of standardization in administration or common tasks [START_REF] Brunt | Applying Lean to Dealers -After Sales Service. 2. German Conference "After Sales Service[END_REF] is noncritical and an effective principle. On the contrary, operational processes differ widely in effort, unspecified and indeterminable lead time and work content. As result, standards either have to be created for every work step leading to an enormous high number of different standards or standards have to be created flexibly to cover all work contents.

An adjustment of a LPS principle takes place for the principle "avoidance of waste". Some kinds of waste, such as overproduction, unnecessary movements or transportation [START_REF] Ohno | Toyota Production System -Beyond Large-Scale Production[END_REF], mainly occur in mass production but are unusual in service pro-cesses. As a result, these kinds of waste have to be modified. For example, "overproduction" could be modified to "too much information", "inefficient work routines" replaces unnecessary movements and transportation in service is represented by "information transfer". "Too much information" in service means that employees get information that is not needed or may confuse them whereas "inefficient work routines" is caused by high level of bureaucracy, unstructured work places or inefficient workshop layouts. Waste in "information transfer" describes non-expedient or slow information flows between employees or departments.

Generally, the principle "continuous improvement process" is directly adaptable. This principle represents the philosophy of simple but steady improvement of processes without high investments for new equipment. To implement this philosophy, a change of employee's mindset is required aiming to improve all process and routines. [START_REF] Imai | Gemba Kaizen[END_REF] Moreover, the implementation of key figures systems is necessary to verify improvements and to improve the quality of processes [START_REF] Dombrowski | Framework for the Planning and Control of Lean Production System Implementation[END_REF]. This philosophy as well as key figure systems are also appropriate and usable in service but the employees have to accept and live this principle. A qualitative evaluation of the possible use of lean production system principle described in VDI 2870 [START_REF]VDI -Verein Deutscher Ingenieure: Lean production systems -Basic principles, introduction, and review[END_REF] is shown in figure 2. "VDI 2870 -Lean Production systems" is used because this reference guideline focuses on producing companies that are attempting to implement an individual lean production system. For this reason, all essential principles are identified as well as fields of application are explained so that this guideline constitutes a good basis for the analysis of a possible use in customer service.

For the identification and adjustment of further, appropriate principles, a comparison between each principle as well as its methods and the relevant influence factors or basic conditions is needed. All useful principles and methods are needed in the next step for structuring a valid guideline.

Structuring a holistic guideline

The structuring of the guideline can be created, analogous to VDI 2870 [START_REF]VDI -Verein Deutscher Ingenieure: Lean production systems -Basic principles, introduction, and review[END_REF], as a principle catalogue. For each principle several methods and tools have to be listed which are necessary for implementing a lean after sales service. For realizing this step, there are two ways of creating the guideline: either providing one principle catalogue for each field of customer service or providing a single principle catalogue for all fields of customer service including individual information about possible fields of application and necessary adjustments of the principle, method and tool. This catalogue builds a basis for OEMs to select and implement principles depending on their individual conditions. After structuring possible principle an allocation of appropriate methods and tools is needed. At this stage changes or modification of methods and tools to the specifics of after sales service can be necessary as well. In accordance with lean production systems, the developed lean after sales service system is only a guideline listing possible principles but the individual implementation and integration into daily routine requires individual adjustment.

Individual adjustment and integration into daily routine

With the help of the developed guideline a company-individual implementation of principles can be performed. It is also possible to eliminate all non-value activities and processes so that the quality of the process will be improved. Moreover, the processes and activities will be created more customer-related as well as transparent. As result of lean after sales services, customer satisfaction and loyalty can be increased and OEMs are able to react faster to changing conditions.

To identify further company-specific influence factors, the execution of customer surveys helps to overview customer expectation. Above this, the implementation of complaint management continuously provides information regarding changing customer's wishes such as pricing of service or further service offers. Additionally, SWOT-analyses give information about strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the provided services. Based on weaknesses, opportunities and threats, problem fields can be identified and necessary principles can be selected.

Above this, the continuous improvement process is fundamental for lean after sales service systems. This process is based on the fact that operational employees have profound knowledge about the processes performing every day [START_REF] Imai | Gemba Kaizen[END_REF]. Thus, these em-ployees know best what kind of problems and errors in service process occur. With their help, inefficient processes or routines can be easily identified and fixed. Additionally, the implementation and tracking of key performance indicator systems helps to secure and improve service process quality.

Summary

The present paper deals with the transfer of lean production principles to after sales services. Therefore, the customer service as one field of after sales service is described. To transfer principles as well as methods and tools of lean production systems, an introduction of LPS is given. On this basis, a qualitative approach to analyze and structure lean production system principles is given. This transfer shows that the use of the lean production system principles and methods is appropriate for the customer service.

Nevertheless, in this field of research a lot more research has to be done. For example, a methodical set of rules, only described qualitatively in this paper, has to be developed for OEMs offering after sales services. This includes the identification of further appropriate principles not considered in this paper. To develop this guide line, the execution of a detailed process analysis of the different task areas in customer services is needed. For an individual implementation, an implementation process has to be defined, similar to the LPS implementation process [START_REF] Dombrowski | Knowledge Management as a Supporting Function in Lean Production System Implementation[END_REF].

Moreover, concrete effects and benefits of the lean transfer to customer service have to be examined so that valid conclusions about improvement in efficiency can be made. Nonetheless, implementing and using LPS principles in customer service is a possibility for OEMs to enlarge their margins and increase customer satisfaction and loyalty so that this business unit will still be an effective sector for manufacturing companies.

Fig. 2 .••

 2 Fig. 2. Qualitative evaluation of possible use of LPS principle in customer service


Fabiana Pirola
email: fabiana.pirola@unibg.it

Giuditta Pezzotta
email: giuditta.pezzotta@unibg.it

Daniela Andreini
email: daniela.andreini@unibg.it

Chiara Galmozzi

Alice Savoia

Roberto Pinto
email: roberto.pinto@unibg.it

Understanding customer needs to engineer Product-Service Systems

Keywords: Product-Service System, Service engineering, customer needs, Persona model

Starting from the 90s, an increasing number of companies have been starting to move from a product-centric perspective towards Product-Service-System (PSS). In this context, suitable models, methods and tools to collect, engineer and embed in a single solution all the knowledge that meets or exceeds people's emotional needs and expectations are required. Despite that, only few authors have proposed methodologies that can be easily adopted by industrial companies to design and engineer a product-service solution starting from the customer needs. Thus, this paper focuses on the customer needs analysis and aims at proposing a methodology to support companies in identifying customer needs, representing the starting point to the engineering and/or reengineering of PSS offering and the related delivery processes. An industrial case study in ABB S.p.A. has been carried out in order to test the methodology.

Introduction

Starting from the 90s [START_REF] Vandermerwe | Servitization of Business: Adding Value by Adding Services[END_REF], an increasing number of companies have been enlarging their offers starting to provide services in addition to their products moving from a productcentric perspective towards Product-Service-System (PSS). This change was spurred by "a continuous strive to create new sources of value for the company, by either reactively fulfilling explicit requirements or proactively providing new integrated productservice solutions to the customer" [START_REF] Cavalieri | Product-Serice Systems Engineering: State of the art and research challenges[END_REF]. The design and development of product-service solutions, along with the management of its whole lifecycle, require the implementation of suitable models, methods and tools for collecting, engineering and embedding in a single solution all the knowledge that meets or exceeds people's emotional needs and expectations [START_REF] Cavalieri | Product-Serice Systems Engineering: State of the art and research challenges[END_REF][START_REF] Berry | Managing the Total Customer Experience[END_REF]. In this context, Service Engineering (SE) has emerged as a discipline calling for the de-sign and the development of an integrated product-service offering adding value to customers [START_REF] Bullinger | Service engineering-methodical development of new service products[END_REF]. In spite of the great success of the SE as a discipline in the academic context, only few authors have proposed methodologies and tools, which can be easily adopted by industrial companies during the design of a product-service solution [START_REF] Cavalieri | Product-service system engineering: From theory to industrial applications[END_REF][START_REF] Rapaccini | Service development in productservice systems: a maturity model[END_REF][START_REF] Shimomura | Service modeling for service engineering[END_REF].

In order to fill this gap, the SErvice Engineering Methodology (SEEM) has been developed [START_REF] Pezzotta | Balancing Product-Service Provider's Performance and Customer's Value: the SErvice Engineering Methodology (SEEM)[END_REF] with the aim to support companies during the (re)engineering of product-service offerings. As depicted in Fig. 1, the SEEM is divided into two main areas: the customer area and the company area. The former deals with the analysis of customer needs and of the current product-service offering(s). The latter, starting from the customer needs identified in the "customer area", aims at defining, through the process prototyping and validation phases, the service features and the delivery process that allows for the best trade-off between customer needs satisfaction and company performance. Once the new service is validated, the service offering is updated. Fig. 1. The SErvice Engineering Methodology (SEEM) [START_REF] Pruitt | The Persona Lifecycle: Keeping People in Mind Throughout Product Design[END_REF] This paper focuses on the customer area of the SEEM and, in particular, on the "customer needs analysis" phase. In this area, the Persona Model (PM) is proposed as tool to collect and present information about customers [START_REF] Pruitt | The Persona Lifecycle: Keeping People in Mind Throughout Product Design[END_REF]. This tool is based on Personas, fictional people describing the prototypical users of a product or service in terms of demographics and main values or needs. Thus, the objective of this paper is to propose a methodology to support companies in developing their customized customer needs list and therefore to build their Personas. These Personas are the company reference point when engineering and defining the service offering. In addition, an industrial case study in ABB S.p.A. has been carried out in order to test the methodology and to create the ABB Service Personas.

The reminder of the paper is structured as follows: section 2 presents a literature review on the persona model and on the main tools developed to gather customer values, section 3 introduces the proposed methodology, while section 4 presents the test and the implementation of the proposed methodology in ABB. Section 5 concludes the paper with final remarks and future development.

Persona model and customer needs

Persona Model is a method useful for product and service development since it deals with the detailed design and representation of virtual users of the specific product or service [START_REF] Pruitt | The Persona Lifecycle: Keeping People in Mind Throughout Product Design[END_REF][START_REF] Shimomura | A Methodology of Persona-centric Service Design[END_REF]. This tool is based on Persona, which provides fictitious, specific and concrete representations of target users, based on real inputs and formally structured. It is composed of a demographic part with data related to age, gender, educational background, occupation, career and so on, and a narrative part, containing the type of individual that the persona is, what he likes and dislikes, skills, attitudes and decision states. It also includes a third part related to persona's specific needs or values and personal goals in the context of the service (or product) being designed. Some imaginary data (usually a name and a picture) are added to the description in order to provide product and service designers with a vivid representation of target users and to make the persona more tangible and alive. A Persona represents a customer segment.

PM is used in both Business to Consumer (B2C) and Business to Business (B2B) contexts. The main difference is that in B2C the Persona is composed of a list of value while in B2B of a list of needs. Values represent what individual desire and influence their actions. Values are "ideals" which individuals respect and believe in. On the other hand, needs represent a "deficiency state", something required or wanted, for which the individual feels a necessity to be satisfied. This difference is justified by the fact that in industrial situations individuals do not have the goal to achieve their ideals (as in B2C context) since they are interested in the satisfaction of their needs.

Regarding customer values, a first investigation of the literature shows that many researchers have tried to understand them and they have proposed methods to measure them accurately. The value term is used variously to refer to interests, pleasures, likes, preferences, duties, moral obligations, desires, wants, goals, needs, aversions and attractions. More precisely, values can be defined as cognitive representations of universal human requirements as biological needs, social interactional requirements and social institutional demands on the individual [START_REF] Kamakura | Value-System Segmentation: Exploring the Meaning of LOV[END_REF]. There are different ways to list and measure these values, the main ones are hereafter listed: Values, Attitudes and Lifestyles System (VALS) [START_REF] Vincent | Personal Values Approach For A Better Understanding Of Consumer Behaviour[END_REF]; Rokeach's Value Survey (RSV) [START_REF] Vinson | An Investigation of the Rokeach Value Survey For Consumer Research Applications[END_REF]; Schwartz [START_REF] Schwartz | Universals in the content and structure of values: theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries[END_REF]; List Of Values (LOV) [START_REF] Kahle | Alternative Measurement Approaches to Consumer Values: The List of Values (LOV) and Values and Life Style (VALS)[END_REF] and SERPVAL scale [START_REF] Lages | The SERPVAL scale: a multi-item instrument for measuring service personal values[END_REF] All the above-mentioned lists refer to the value and they are all focused on B2C customers. From this analysis, it emerges that in B2B a defined default list of needs is still missing, even if there are several studies related to B2B needs. Thus, the aim of this paper is to propose a methodology to gather and analyze industrial customer needs and build industrial Personas, as presented in the next section.

Methodology

In order to overcome the main gap presented in literature, the objective of this paper is to propose a methodology to support companies in developing their customized customer needs list and therefore to build their Personas. This methodology will then be adopted in the SErvice Engineering Methodology (SEEM). The methodology (Fig. 2) is structured as follows.

1. Qualitative interviews. They allow to collect insights about respondent views, experiences, beliefs and/or motivations and decision making process. Semi-structured interviews are adopted, therefore several key questions that help to identify interviewer's needs and decisional processes are defined. The flexibility of this approach allows the discovery or elaboration of information that may not have been previously thought from the research team. After the validation of the questionnaire, decision makers of customer companies are then interviewed face to face to identify their main needs and characteristics. The interviews, which are taperecorded, are detailed in a report and then analyzed by the research team. The main output of this step is the creation of a list of specific needs derived from the interviews. 2. Quantitative questionnaire. The main customers' needs arisen from Step 1 are utilized for building a specific questionnaire. This survey is structured in order to apply the MaxDiff methodology [START_REF] Almquist | What Do Customers Really Want?[END_REF] to score the needs and identify which are the most important ones for the B2B customers. Reliability of the questionnaire is verified using a pilot test. Company performance according to these needs, structured with a five point rating scale (Likert-type scale), and customer features are also asked. An appropriate sample that represents the customer population is selected.

The questionnaire is submitted to the customer's decision makers in the service area. Aim of this analysis is to get a representative sample of the company target market. 3. Analysis. All respondents' data are collected and statistically analyzed through the MaxDiff analysis [START_REF] Almquist | What Do Customers Really Want?[END_REF]. The MaxDiff uses a sophisticated estimation technique to produce scores for each respondent on each item, the Hierarchical Bayes estimation (HB). The output of the tool is an estimation of scores related to each of all the fourteen needs, namely the rescaled (probability) scores. These positive values reflect the likelihood of items being chosen within the questionnaire. After that a cluster analysis is also performed to segment customer and therefore to identify the Personas. Each Persona defines a fictitious customer who represents the cluster and its characteristics. The definition of the Personas is fundamental in order to propose and engineer services able to satisfy different customers with different needs.

Fig. 2. Methodology

Qualitative interviews

Case study

ABB is one of the largest power and automation technology companies in the world. The company employs today 150.000 people all over the world and in 2013 had annual revenue of 42 billion of dollars. The company operates in 5 divisions (Power Products, Power Systems, Discrete Automation and Motion, Low Voltage Products and Process Automation). This case study refers to the Italian Discrete Automation and Motion division, and in particular to Robotics, with the objective of creating ABB Personas based on the needs of their industrial partners (called "customer" or "partner"). Their partners are system integrators (who install ABB products after having customized them) and OEM (suppliers with a large scope of provision that use ABB components only in a small percentage of final outputs). They represent the ABB direct customers but not the final customers of their solutions. Specifically, market segmentation will be conducted: customers will be grouped in different clusters in order to produce different ABB Personas, providing a solid representation of target customers to be used during the definition of new services and update of the existing ones.

The implementation in the ABB context of the three above mentioned methodology steps in ABB is briefly described hereafter.

Qualitative interviews

Following a series of meetings and workshops with ABB experts in service, marketing and robotics, a semi-structured questionnaire based on open questions has been built and then validated.

Starting from general company characteristics, decision makers of customer companies are called to give their opinions regarding service in general and their experience, service management inside their company and their main objectives. Furthermore, a question regarding how much the service could affect the eventual choice of a supplier is posed to respondents. Concluding, an evaluation of ABB service is asked.

Combining all the needs emerged from respondents, the list of needs has been generated (see table 1). This list has been then used to build the quantitative questionnaire.

Quantitative questionnaire

After the definition of the customers' needs list and consulting the ABB Service and Marketing experts, a quantitative questionnaire has been designed. The questionnaire is structured in three main parts: the first section refers to the evaluation of customer's selection criteria when choosing a services supplier; the second section contains an evaluation of ABB performances and the last section is characterized by general questions about the company and its approach to service. The questionnaire has been validated by an internal pilot test with two experts of the commercial area. Then, the survey has been conducted online and, in case of relevant partners, with face-to-face interviews. In total, 95 contacts (representative of 43 different direct customers) have been defined: among these, 40 respondents fully completed the survey, with a 43% response rate.

Analysis

Once all answers have been collected, the first step has been to perform the MaxDiff analysis [START_REF] Almquist | What Do Customers Really Want?[END_REF]. Thanks to this analysis, the customers' needs have been ranked on a scale from highest to lowest for each respondent. Table 1 reports for each analyzed need the average score of the sample. The supplier has people with the right competences 13,25

The supplier is able to answer customer request at any time and all over the world 11,99

The supplier supports in reducing breakdown risks (or their impact) during warranty period 11,25

The supplier is able to deliver spare parts in 24h all over the world 9,33

The supplier is fair and cooperation is ruled by clear and transparent commercial terms 7,05

The supplier is transparent (gives visibility) in programming interventions and reporting activities 6,08

The supplier supports during engineering and commissioning period 5,79

The supplier supports in offering services to end customers after warranty period 5,65

The supplier has a low price 3,28

The supplier trains my people for service purposes 2,99

The supplier cooperates with us in service marketing and sales 2,87

Maintenance of products is done by the manufacturer 2,31

The supplier has a recognized reputation and strong brand 1,14

As emerged from the table, the needs receiving the highest scores are those ones related to the concepts of responsiveness and efficacy, customer assistance and availability of high-skilled personnel able to solve issues.

The least important need seems to be the reputation and the strong brand associated with the firm. This could be explained by the fact that when choosing a service provider the brand is not so relevant, while it is instead for the product (robot) itself.

Especially noteworthy is the score received by the need "The supplier has a low price": it has received a low score, even if is not in the bottom part of the ranking.

Once defined the score for each need, the cluster analysis has been adopted in order to segment customers and generate the Personas. In particular, a two-stage sequence of analysis has been applied: 1. A hierarchical cluster analysis using Ward's method and applying squared Euclidean Distance has been chosen to determine the optimum number of clusters. Ward's method uses an analysis of variance approach to evaluate the distances be-tween clusters. The Ward's method has been selected in this case because the analyzed dataset do not include any outliers [START_REF] Jr | Hierarchical grouping to optimize an objective function[END_REF]; 2. The hierarchical cluster analysis has been re-run with the selected number of clusters. This second step has allowed the allocation of each case to a particular cluster.

As result, the following three ABB Personas have been identified:

• Persona 1, representative of cluster 1, is a young technician with some years of experience, working in a big company (specifically, a system integrator). He needs spare parts in short time and requires fast issue resolution. • Persona 2, representative of cluster 2, is the owner of a big company operating as a system integrator. He has a lot of experience in the field. He takes for granted common service needs and focuses on high-level needs: he is interested in a partnership with ABB, asking for a strong partnership and cooperation with supplier. • Persona 3, representative of cluster 3, is a mechanical engineer working in a small OEM company. He is a young man that requires constant support from ABB since he has not all the right competences.

Conclusions

This paper has provided a deep understanding of customers' needs, as required in the first phase of the SErvice Engineering Methodology (SEEM), highlighting the importance of a customer-centred approach as the starting point in the service engineering process. To this purpose, the Persona Model is used to gather and represent the main product-service users, in terms of demographic features, personal characteristics and needs. Thanks to the literature review, different lists of values emerge related to the B2C contexts, while in the B2B industrial context a similar list of needs is missing. Thus, since in the B2B context each single case has to be considered as unique, a structured methodology to define a list of needs in the Persona Model have been proposed. In addition, to test the validity and applicability an industrial case study in ABB has been provided. This has allowed to generate the list of industrial customer needs and therefore to segment them in different clusters and identify three customer Personas on which the service offering should be engineered.

The main limitation of this work, however, is represented by the difficulty to generalize the list of the industrial customers' needs, since they are strongly linked to the specific industrial reality. In order to have more robust results, it would be optimal to have a higher number of respondents. For this reason, future developments will be to improve the analysis considering much more respondents and add other variables useful for the description of the clusters.

Table 1 .

 1 MaxDiff average score of the sample

	Needs

adfa, p. 1, 2011. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011

Acknowledge. The research leading to these results has received funding from ABB S.p.A Italy.


Audrey Serna
email: audrey.serna@insa-lyon.fr

Simon Pageaud
email: simon.pageaud@univ-lyon1.fr

Lili Tong
email: lili.tong@insa-lyon.fr

Sébastien George
email: sebastien.george@univ-lemans.fr

Aurélien Tabard
email: aurelien.tabard@univ-lyon1.fr@univ-lyon1.fr

F-formations and Collaboration Dynamics Study for Designing Mobile Collocation

Keywords: Collaboration, Coordination, F-formation, Collaboration dynamics, Group regulation, Ubiquitous computing, Mobile learning. ACM Classification H.5.3. Information interfaces and presentation (e.g., HCI): Group and Organization Interfaces -Computersupported cooperative work, K.3.1 Computing Milieux: Computer Uses in Education -Collaborative learning

come

Introduction

The physical and digital properties of our environment shape the organization and interaction in collaboration [START_REF] Marshall | Using F-formations to analyse spatial patterns of interaction in physical environments[END_REF]. In this article, we are especially interested in understanding the relationship between mobility and coordination mechanisms in mobile and collaborative outdoor activities.

To study how device use and spatial arrangements shape coordination in real conditions, we designed and deployed an orienteering learning game with the collaboration of high school teachers. We conducted an experiment with four groups of three students, aged from 16 to 17. During the experiment, one teacher and one person from our research team followed each group supervise and film the group activity. For the video analysis, our observations focused on four elements: awareness, regulation, information sharing and discussions among group members. We use Kendon's F-formations [START_REF] Kendon | Conducting interaction[END_REF] to analyze people's spatial-orientational arrangements in joint activities, with a focus on how F-formations are created during the collaboration and what are the social interactions happening in these arrangements.

Our study offers insights on how students use tablets to collaborate in an outdoor activity, the Fformations associated to specific coordination phases, and the importance of transitions. We derive implications for design, in respect to complex information sharing and control in proxemics interaction in mobile conditions.

Observed F-formations

Kendon [START_REF] Kendon | Conducting interaction[END_REF] described three types of F-formation for groups of two persons: L-shaped, face-to-face and side-by-side (see Figure 1, top), and he added a circular F-formation arrangement for groups of more than two persons. Marshall et al. [START_REF] Marshall | Using F-formations to analyse spatial patterns of interaction in physical environments[END_REF] added two more arrangements for groups of four persons: semi-circular and rectangle. In our study, the groups are composed of three students, we noticed three main types of Fformations arrangements: semi-circular, circular and triangular (see Figure 1, bottom). These arrangements can be influenced by the on-going task, and also by environmental features. Given the mobile nature of the activity, compared to the F-formations described in the HCI literature, the F-formations we observed were highly dynamic. Both within the formation, for example students would keep their formation but move in the same direction, or all rotate at once; and also moving quickly from one formation to another. A transition from one formation to another often indicated a change of the focus in the on-going task.

The triangular arrangement happened when two students were standing close to each other on one side with a third student staying on the opposite side at some distance from the others.

We consider coordination as "the act of managing interdependencies between activities performed to achieve a goal" [START_REF] Malone | What is coordination theory and how can it help design cooperative work systems[END_REF]. In coordinated work, participants act towards a shared goal dealing with time and organizational constraints. For our study purpose, we selected four mechanisms used in the process of coordination: awareness, regulation, information sharing and discussion. This arrangement is often caused by an unequal distribution of action. The triangular arrangement was rarely maintained for a long time. In the circular arrangement, students are at a similar distance from each other, it appeared to be the most comfortable position to have a group talk. The circular arrangement was the most stable formation we observed, and also the most frequent one (especially for discussion). Finally, in the semi-circular arrangement, three students stay corner-to-corner, which let them easily share objects, such as a tablet or an instrument.

Given the highly mobile nature of the activity, the structure of the formations changed rapidly. These dynamic transitions are particularly important in group work [START_REF] Marshall | Using F-formations to analyse spatial patterns of interaction in physical environments[END_REF].

We analyzed in detail one sequence involving all the coordination mechanisms identified and the transition from one to the next. Figure 2 shows the most representative formations.

Implication for interaction design for mobile collocation

Better support for complex information sharing Sharing complex information was challenging and frequently led to new group arrangements to cope with the lack of shared ground. In such situations three people focusing on a single tablet is burdensome and impedes collaboration. There is a need for tools enabling collaborative interaction with complex information in mobile conditions. For instance, in semicircular formations, we could use proximity to enable information transfers between tablets, as proposed by Marquadt [START_REF] Marquardt | Cross-device interaction via micro-mobility and f-formations[END_REF]. We could also enable the duplication of screens for a moment, or enable a focused/zoomed-in mode so that information is more readily visible to people in a circle.

Focusing on transitions between F-formations

Most of the arrangements we observed were only stable for short amounts of time. When designing tools to better support collaboration, rather than capturing given F-formations, emphasis should be given to changes between arrangements. For instance, the transition from one formation to another could be proactively managed on the devices by suggesting which device configuration would be most useful. Another possibility would be to let users to maintain the state of a previous configuration even though the arrangement has changed.

Subtlety and control in proxemic interaction

Leveraging proxemics to support users' interactions in context aware systems is promising, but should be treated with care in mobile conditions. Especially in outdoor conditions, the cost of implicit adaptations might not be worth the benefits. We observed many situations in which the arrangements of the participants were similar but the high level activity required different information and devices configurations.

Figure 2 :

 2 Figure 2: A sequence of collaborative behaviors and their corresponding F-formations. A: Sophie is scanning a QR code, David and Anna are watching (awareness); B: Sophie reads out code to others (verbal information sharing); C: David and Sophie move towards Anna to see her tablet (awareness & regulation); D: Sophie takes Anna's tablet (on-device information sharing); E: Sophie holds up her tablet showing it to the others (on-device information sharing); F: They are discussing (discussion); G: David double checks the tablet (on-device information sharing); H: During the discussion, Anna suggests to move forward (discussion & regulation); I: Sophie asks David where to go next (regulation & on-device information sharing)

Table 1 :

 1 Hierarchical levels in collective activity

Acknowledgements

This work was partially funded by the China Scholarship Council PhD program and the ANR project JENlab (ANR-13-APPR-0001).