Engaging the SSME Challenge: Curriculum Development for the Engineering Faculty at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia

Service Science Management and Engineering is a new field that recognizes the importance of the services sector. It had created a worldwide movement in terms of curriculum both at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. In Malaysia particularly, several universities have offered Masters programs in SSME. In UKM itself efforts are taken to develop a Masters program in SSME in which the program is designed uniquely covering three main areas of service science, namely the technology, management and the engineering. The curriculum is designed by taking into consideration the importance of service fundamental topics and the three main areas stated. The curriculum framework contains four main components known as Service Foundation, Strategic Service Development, Service Science Concentration which covers three main areas; Technology, Management and Engineering, and Service Science Business & Technology Integration (Capstone). Based on the framework, the program will be offered across the three main faculties in UKM, specifically the Engineering, Business and IT school. Service foundation consists of topics that will provide the contextual foundation and the core knowledge required for service science. The contextual foundation will focus on providing the service context in understanding the customers, organizations, processes and external environment. The core courses on the other hand will focus on developing the competence in innovating and improving service systems using specialized tools in which this are the courses that forms the Strategic Service Development component. The challenge faced in designing such curriculum is determining the approach in teaching for the services subjects as the audience will come from various backgrounds such as Engineering, IT and also Management. This paper reports the challenges faced in designing the service science curriculum particularly for the Engineering concentration and challenges in realizing the agenda of establishing the program in the university.