Service Design for Resilience: A Multi-Contextual Modeling Perspective

Abstract

This paper introduces a conceptual framework aiming to broaden the discussion on resilience for the design of public services. From a theoretical point of view, the paper explores service design with a Systems Thinking lens. A multi-contextual perspective aiming to analyze, decompose, and design smart cities services where resilience is an input at the service design level is described and the four diamondsof-context model for service design (4DocMod) is introduced. This service model accommodates various actors' contexts in public service design and consists of four design artefacts, the diamonds (See, Recognize, Organize, Do). From a practical point of view, guidelines for the application of the 4DocMod service model extension for resilience are described along with two case studies addressing the recent COVID-19 pandemic that illustrates a clear situation of resilience with insights in multiple contexts. According to the findings of this paper, it is obvious that resilience is not "just" a request. Instead, it plays a higher role within the service system. It is not "just" another Context, either. Instead, it goes through many contexts with different circumstances. In this manner, it is possible to address the qualities through which actors can become resilient, at the service design stage, to ensure continuity of the public services in times of emergency. As our approach using the 4DocMod is proposing, resilience may be is achieved when specific properties are provisioned at information service design level.

Enhancing Safety During a Pandemic Using Virtual Care Remote Monitoring Technologies and UML Modeling

“…The majority of this work is focused on software systems rather than technology systems for supporting patients in home settings. To date there have been some published articles on the related topics of use of UML for emergency plan development [ 23 ], creation of business processes as part of emergency planning [ 24 ], and service design for resilience during public health emergencies [ 25 ]. There are also a few published works on use and modeling of multi-agent systems in medicine generally [ 26 ] as well as on use of UML modeling in of emerging infectious diseases [ 27 ].…”

Why Service Science matters in approaching a "resilient" Society

“…• Engineering: Resilience as the ability to anticipate, respond or adapt rapidly in response to catastrophic and destructive events [43]; resilience as the collective ability to implement adaptive behaviors capable of reducing the stress condition [44]; the quality of a system (intended as a whole) to respond productively to significant changes capable of upsetting the reference context [5]; the intrinsic ability of an organization (understood as a system) to dynamically maintain a stable balance and implement growth actions even in the presence of continuous stress [24]; the 3R elements that influence resilience are: requisite variety, redundancy, resources [45]; resilience is associated to the dynamics that create or maintain ITM Web of Conferences 38, (2021) https://doi.org/10.1051/itmconf/20213802001 IESS 2.1 resources (cognitive, emotional, relational or structural) in a sufficiently flexible, memorable, convertible and malleable form [1];…”

“…In this section we introduce the Smart Service Model Canvas (SSModC), presented in figure 2, as a tool to help accomplishing these aims. This is an adaptation of the Service Science Canvas [68] with the insights from 4DocMod framework [5]. In the SSModC, the main elements of the diamonds model [18] are aligned to the four main assumptions described in Subsect.…”

“…Indeed, the merge of complementary aspects affecting resilience, in order to find solutions (smart or similar) helpful and insightful to improve adaptive processes, to manage evolving conditions, to plan adjusting operations, to design scalable and versatile tools, to strongly maintain the identity over all changing situations, is fostered and motivated for several reasons [5]. In this path, wise interactions among a deep knowledge / know how and specific techniques, procedures, and protocols can empower new ways of interpretation for action, by magnifying the potential integration [6], [7].…”

“…Therefore, to build (design, realize, and maintain) Smart City Service is a complicated problem, and tools with real applicability are still needed. Within the scope of this paper, to design such a tool, we have got inspiration from the 4DocMod framework [5], that is based on the originally developed diamonds model [18], and further extended for the multi-contextual environment of Smart City Services in [6].…”