Service Science, Management and Engineering (SSME) Programme

The SMU School of Information Systems has launched a new specialty track in Service Science & Systems within its Advanced Business Solutions second major. This is part of a national and global effort by universities and industry to produce a new breed of professionals trained in Service Science who can lead efforts in service innovation. SIS has the lead role within SMU to develop and strengthen Service Science education and research initiatives.

Glossary

Service Science

Service Science is an emerging discipline, which aims to discover and provide tools and methods to study services. This includes applying scientific and mathematical analysis to increase service productivity, improve the predictability of demand for service and achieve more systematic service innovation.

Service Science, Management and Engineering (SSME)

SSME complements the rich and high quality curricula already available in the universities in Singapore. SSME is an emerging multi-disciplinary research area and academic discipline that integrate aspects of established fields such as computer science, operations research, engineering, management sciences, business strategy, social and cognitive sciences, and legal sciences.

With IBM Global Services being the largest IT services organisation in the world, IBM has taken the lead in recognising that college graduates need new skills to address business and technical issues in a service business environment. Because services depend critically on people working together and with technology to provide value for others, these new skills include the ability to integrate across traditional disciplinary areas to obtain globally effective solutions (rather than merely locally effective solutions).

SSME is one approach to integrating a variety of disciplines, including areas in engineering, social sciences and management, to properly focus education and research on services.

Many universities around the world are developing new services-oriented courses and curricula; others are expanding their existing focus on services. But a significant effort is still needed to develop a truly cross-disciplinary approach to SSME.

For more information on the IBM SSME Initiative, visit www.ibm.com/university/ssme