Realizing Innovations in Service Firms: new organizational forms and supporting processes

This paper describes a number of innovation forms that are of special relevance to firms in the service industry. Not only technological innovations but also organizational innovations have been distinguished. In the service industry organizational innovations seem to play a significant role. The literature on innovations makes little mention of new organizational arrangements in services. Based on the service management literature a scheme with three forms of organizational innovation and one form of technological innovation is developed. This scheme is illustrated and elaborated in ten case studies of firms in various service industries. The case studies shed some light on innovations in multi-unit forms, combinations of services and co-operation with customers. On a basis of the service management literature and the case studies some of the main processes supporting the (organizational) innovations are analysed.client as co-producer;multi-unit organization;supporting processes;technological innovations

Classification of mineral water types and comparison with drinking water standards

In a study of 291 mineral waters from 41 different countries, 9-20% exceeded the Dutch drinking water standards for chloride, calcium, magnesium, kalium, sodium, sulphate and fluorine. The mineral water quality cannot be qualified as bad since the standards for these compounds with the exception of fluorine, are not based on health effects but on undesirable taste effects and possible negative effects on the water supply system. For the mineral water data set the amount of dissolved compounds, hardness and chloride content appear to be the most distinctive criteria. A mineral water type classification based on these criteria will offer consumers a tool for assessing the mineral water on the basis of the chemical composition data on the bottle label. In terms of the criteria mentioned, average Dutch tap water strongly resembles the Belgian and Dutch mineral waters. This similarity does not extend to the price, since Dutch tap water is about 500 times cheaper

Diffraction grating theory with RCWA or the C method

Diffraction gratings are often used in optical metrology. When an electromagnetic wave is incident on a grating, the periodicity of the grating causes amultiplicity of diffraction orders. In many metrology applications one needs to know the diffraction efficiency of these orders. Since the period of a grating is often of the same order of magnitude as the wavelength, it is needed to solve Maxwell’s equations rigorously in order to obtain these diffraction efficiencies. Two of those methods are the rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA) and the C method. In this paper a comparison is made between RCWA and the C method with respect to accuracy and speed. Restrictions are made to one-interface problems, which means that only two media are involved separated by one interface, and only gratings are considered with a periodicity in only one direction