The construction of the knowledge base has been set as a requirement in the design science research methodology (Peffers et al., 2008). In the research design section the construction of the knowledge base was divided into two sub-groups: 1) constructing a theoretical knowledge base by exploring the current scientific literature before creating the design artifact, and 2) exploring and extracting experiences and perceived insights in the empirical context during the design artifact test period. Here the content of the first sub-group is summarized for utilization in the next section: constructing the design artifact. The theoretical knowledge base was constructed from four different views and the research literature within them: the architectural view, the design view, the operations
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view, and the information view. The following contents for the next section were provided:
Architectural view: The architectural approach and techniques provide an ability to form artificial descriptions, artifacts that focus on representing and visualizing structures and relationships of the target object, which can be anything from complete systems to a limited set of tasks or resources. The architectures can be organized hierarchically through which the scope and level of detail can be adjusted. Since there is no single architecture in any system or context, architectures illustrate only a selected perspective. The architectural approach therefore provides also the opportunity to move between different perspectives in the same layer of details.
Design view: The design view provides an approach and techniques for transforming real elements into artifacts and also for defining the scope of the design. In this study the scope and level of details form the design space. The existing literature and models in it provided altogether nine types of changes that characterize services in the design space. The design space was limited to cover the design phase, the operations phase and the information linkages between these two phases. Though the design space was illustrated as a static composition of change elements and service development functionalities, the design space does not limit or even clarify how different elements interact and how they are actually organized.
Operations view: The operations view focuses on analysing the changes identified in the previous section from the information perspective. Nine changes were aggregated into six change types: 1) resource integration, 2) transforming resources and resource production, 3) creating interactions, 4) creating experiences, 5) changing the state and the reality of the object, and 6) creating and perceiving value. These changes and the information contents provided a view where the operations are a continuous activity from the information creation and processing perspective. A close connection between resource integration and production was identified, but also value creation and experience creation, as well as designing and interaction can be potentially seen as resource integration and production. If the integration and production of a resource can be analysed without limiting role description, the potential value of operational information can be increased. Information view: The information view focuses on exploring the information design, and design information and run-time information are used in and outside services. Since the literature focusing on the role of information in non-technological service systems is scarce, the exploration was extended to cover manufacturing and information systems as well. Design information focuses on two main functionalities supporting and representing information about new designs and also reusing the existing design information. The runtime or operational information plays an important role in the context where the situational awareness of operations and related knowledge is important. In general organizations need both design information and operational information to reduce uncertainty and equivocality. Finally, the information view provides insights into process
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knowledge creation before, during and after process execution and how the interface between design and operations and the main object or artifact that is used as a central unit in information extraction and analysis can change the view on activities in different process contexts.
The construction of the knowledge base provides already now potential for new knowledge creation and valuable insights, but still only through loose and mainly abstract levels. Considering the activities of an organization as information processing (Tushman and Nadler, 1978) is not a new idea. The knowledge base proves that by accepting the information nature of design and operations, the aim at connecting design and operations and transforming this information linkage into applicable tools on various abstraction levels forms potentially a combination that could close the identified gaps in the research. At the same time, by following the resource integration and production logic, it is clear that creating new knowledge will create also new gaps.
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4 CONSTRUCTING THE DESIGN ARTIFACT
“As an airplane example shows, the ominous term ‘chaotic’ should not be read as ‘unmanageable’. Turbulence is frequently present in hydraulic and aerodynamic situations and artifacts. In such situations,
although the future is not predictable in any detail, it is manageable as an aggregate phenomenon” (Simon, 2001, p. 179)
The primary task and objective of this dissertation is to create new type of service information, knowledge and tools for connecting service design to operations management through an architectural level design artifact. The aim of the design artifact aims is to create new properties of a system which do not have place in the existing system components while accepting the notification by Simon (2001) that mechanistic emergence of properties is no emergence. In this section, the researcher takes the role of a problem-creator and solver while maintaining a link to what is already known and acknowledging the requirements set for rigorous scientific research. The documentation of the construction phase is very detailed and reports all decisions that have been made throughout the construction phase.
Peffers et al. (2008) state that a design artifact can be any designed object if the research contribution is embedded in the design. The construction of the design artifact phase includes two main steps: 1) determining the desired functionality of the artifact and its architecture and 2) creating the actual artifact (ibid.). The construction phase is organized as follows: the first subsection focuses on explaining the layout of the design artifact, where the layout refers to illustration of reality. The second subsection introduces the logic of the design artifact on two architectural layers: a logic layer and a process layer. The third subsection consists of the functionalities of the design artifact, and finally, the fourth sub-section consists of formulating sub-artifacts for testing purposes, including research propositions and tasks for the sub-artifacts. In this section references, if the source or topic is not totally new, are not cited as the theoretical background was explained in detail in the previous section. The existing and extracted theoretical definitions are acknowledged, but in this section some new definitions are made solely for the design artifact.
4.1 Structure of the design artifact – turning an intangible idea into a concrete