Dedication.- Foreword.- Preface.- Acknowledgments.- List of abbreviations.- Introduction.- The conceptual tools.- The Service Machine.- Case studies.- Summary and Discussion.- References.

Ram Babu Roy is an Assistant Professor in Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship, IIT Kharagpur, India. He Holds M.Sc (Physics) from IIT Kanpur, M.Tech (VLSI Design Tools and Technology) from IIT Delhi and Doctorate in Management from IIM Calcutta. His major and minor areas of specialization are Management Information Systems and Operations Management respectively. Earlier, he has served as a Scientist in the Aeronautical Development Establishment, Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO), Bangalore, India. His research interests include complex networked systems, healthcare operations management and information systems.

Paul Lillrank is professor of Quality and Service Management at Aalto University School of Science. He has served as the head of the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management, and as Academic Dean of the school's MBA program. He completed his Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences at Helsinki University after post-graduate studies in Japan, where he researched quality management in Japanese industry. His research area is Health Systems Science, especially processes, service integration, and operating logics. He has co-founded The Institute of Healthcare Engineering, Management and Architecture (HEMA) at Aalto, and the Nordic Healthcare Group (NHG) Co. Ltd., a consultancy company.

Sreekanth V.K. is a Research Scholar in Rajendra Mishra School of Engineering Entrepreneurship, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, India. He completed his Master of Technology in Systems Analysis and Computer Applications from National Institute of Technology Karnataka, Surathkal, India and Bachelor of Technology in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from Mahatma Gandhi University, Kerala, India. He works on resource optimization in Emergency Medical Services, especially in Indian context, using data-driven approach. His research interests include data science, decision science and agent based modeling. Prior to joing the PhD program, he worked with Infosys Limited, India. He has attained a good exposure to the life cycles of software development in Equity finance domain. He has also been a part of Education & Research Department and the Innovation Hub of Infosys.

Paulus Torkki is an Associate Professor of Healthcare Operations Management in the University of Helsinki in Faculty of Medicine. After the doctoral dissertation, Torkki was research director of Healthcare Management Institute in Aalto University. Torkki has also been working in private companies as a consultant and in various business development positions. His research interest and publications mainly focus on health care operations management, focusing on the performance measurement and the development of the care processes and pathways.