Rapid Prototyping Services

3-D simulation of service scenarios in virtual space services have a great disadvantage compared to products: you can be difficult. A product or a product idea you can relatively quickly and easily demonstrate and customize by modifications to shape, colour, material or size. Under a service everyone imagines something else and rarely meet the individual expectations. This discrepancy between imagination and reality is reflected particularly in the development of new services. Against this background, the ServLab developed at the Fraunhofer IAO: the service laboratory offers the unique possibility to make service innovations visible, externally – and experience already in the very early stages. Amazingly lifelike spaces thanks to virtual reality.

Professional actors bring scenarios to life. With these visualization capabilities, the laboratory opens up new ways to involve employees, partners and customers in the innovation process. For a strategic and systematic The variety of methods and tools be used with the service development. The ServLab is the high end solution when it comes to the concept of a service already during its development to the test and optimize. But not always, it must be the high end solution service innovations to test and to check on their feasibility. Therefore, the Fraunhofer IAO is a second”Virtual Lab”in second life available. This is a 3-D online infrastructure, in which stakeholders can make complete service scenarios in virtual space according to their ideas. With the help of virtual representatives (avatars) the project team in the role of customers and employees can slip in the specially created world play through various service situations and directly assess.

Regardless of the place of residence of the stakeholders, this virtual lab offers an ideal complement to the work site in the ServLab. Second life is currently used in three projects: A startup company uses the Possibility of quick visualization of spaces and processes to their innovative, fleshing out but still abstract business plan and to prepare the implementation. In a series of workshop, shop concept and customer interaction are modeled and coordinated with each other. A second machine and plant construction company uses second life and the ServLab, to optimize the cooperation between service personnel and sales. In the third project, it comes to try out new ways of advice of critically ill patients. More Tobias Hug, Fraunhofer IAO