Embodied Design Methods as Catalyst for Industrial Service Design

All over the world manufacturing companies are moving towards service business. The service-dominated landscape of business is complex and the value of services is produced in networks combining products, services, different providers and actors. Services deeply influence the socio-economic systems we are living in, and, therefore, in the future all business will be service business one way or another. The article locates embodied design methods in the context of industrial service design processes and large-scale organisations. It connects embodied design to changing business landscape via industrial service design field where theatrical methods are used to understand, ideate and evaluate the impact of service concepts and to support transformation in an organisation. The article presents one design case done in SINCO service innovation laboratory with a large manufacturing company. Findings show that embodied design can speed up the industrial service design process by gaining a common understanding of the design challenge, by producing easily usable data and by earning the commitment of the stakeholders.