Service design case; Identification, description and analysis of an existing innovative service.

Shivam Shrivastava
Nov 11, 2018
3 min read

This research project aims at creating the awareness of what makes a service innovative and the language to represent it.

After analysing a service, end result is designing a poster and take away cards for ServDes, the Service Design and Innovation conference at Politechnico Di Milano.

Project timeline

Master of Product Service System Design

Service Design & Technologies [Academic Year 2017/2018]

Prof sa Daniela Sangiorgi

Tutors: Marta Carrera, Filipe Lima

Created at

Scuola del Design - Politecnico di Milano, Italy.

Team members

Edoardo Giacchini : Master in Product Service and System design

Giacomo Molteni : Master in Product Service and System design

Shivam Shrivastava : Master in Product Service and System design

Yuenan Hou : Master in Product Service and System design

Project Detail

Select and Analyse the service to find different variable to make a service successful.

Consider the level and nature of the proposed service innovation:

Level of Newness: The level of newness requires to relate the product to a specific and existing market or typology of service and value its novelty. Define the characteristics of the existing market/service and highlight how the chosen service differs.

Degree of change: In order to define the degree of change, you need to relate it to a specific market, the offer of the current organisation/provider or a specific dimension of the existing service. Define the characteristics of the original market/organisation/dimension and articulate the depth of change (how is it totally new, addition or improvement?)

Dimensions of novelty: which dimensions of the service are innovated (concept, delivery system/organisation, client interface, technology)? Even if the innovation is multidimensional, there is generally a dimension (or some) that dominates in terms of transformation.

Pattern of Innovation: Gather information on the innovation process and contributions and see if the innovation belongs to some innovation pattern. Briefly describe how the innovation was achieved.

Means of Innovation: which kind of resources have been used to operationalise the innovation? Are

these mostly human or organisational or is it technology the main driver?

Co-creation of Value: Describe what is the value generated for the organisation, for clients, partners or society/environment.

Select a service to Analyse:-

When selecting the case study for the following analysis we took into account different criteria and

followed different phases:

first of all we considered the trend of urban farming and its difusion in the mainstream culture, especially in ever evolving cities.

Secondly we analyse the main service company in our opinion, Infarm, together with other actors operating in the same field. We noticed how the innovation of Infarm differentiated itself from the competitors as it targeted supermarkets and revolutionized the vegetable supply chain.

Title and Subtitle of the sevice: Infarm - turnkey solution for indoor vetical farming.

County and town: Germany - Berlin

Year of start: 2017

Type of sevice: Provider of indoor farming equipment and consultancy.

Specialties: Vertical Farming, Indoor Farming, Internet of things, Urban vertical Farming, Agriculture, and Food Tech.

Analyse the selected service

Infarm processes are self controlled by technology and specially designed software. Autonomous, vertical modular farming units can be stacked to meet any space or demand. Vegetable and Green leafy vegetables are sold directly inside the supermarket to the customers, making it a 0 kilometer, fresher and more transparent way of farming.

For research report http://bit.ly/2yZ1NxC

Second phase of this research project

The second phase of this class project is designing a poster and take away cards for ServDes, the Service Design and Innovation conference at Politechnico Di Milano.