Service Systems, Smart Service Systems and Cyber-Physical Systems—What’s the difference? Towards a Unified Terminology

As businesses and their networks transform towards co-creation, several concepts describing the resulting systems emerge. During the past years, we can observe a rise of the concepts Service Systems, Smart Service Systems and Cyber-Physical Systems. However, distinct definitions are either very broad or contradict each other. As a result, several characteristics appear around these terms, which also miss distinct allocations and relationships to the underlying concepts. Previous research only describes these concepts and related characteristics in an isolated manner. Thus, we perform an inter-disciplinary structured literature review to relate and define the concepts of Service Systems, Smart Service Systems and Cyber-Physical Systems as well as related characteristics. This article can, therefore, serve as a basis for future research endeavors as it delivers a unified terminology.