Service Engineering Framework and Its Application in Service Innovation for Elderly People in Beijing

Community- and home-based care services for the elderly are carried out in many communities of cities in China, meanwhile, these initial small-scale pilots have been gradually extended, and this has become the trend of community development in the next few years. However, community and home care services for elderly people are still facing problems such as inadequate coverage and low-service levels. The significance as well as the challenge of service innovation and service engineering becomes apparent. The authors give an overview on the current situation of community and home care services in Beijing and illustrate how service engineering methodology is applied to two concrete new service products in one community in Beijing. Preliminary results of one collaborative project between Beijing Research Center of Urban System Engineering and Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering in Germany are illustrated and discussed.