Premium and Sustainable Food Delivery Service : Exploring Product-Service-Systems and Dersigning Concept Proposals with Electric Motorbikes

Abstract: This project presents a master’s thesis in Industrial Design Engineering within service design which was carried out on behalf of the Swedish electric motorbike company CAKE. The project examines opportunities to create a premium and sustainable food delivery service in a market characterized by unsustainable working conditions for couriers and widespread dissatisfaction among users. The project started in an ongoing pilot for a food delivery service between CAKE and a Swedish restaurant group where there was an interest in scaling up the deliveries. The purpose of the work was partly to explore what role CAKE can play in such a product-service system for a premium and sustainable food delivery service as well as to investigate how to create a premium experience in a food delivery service. The methodology in the project builds on a service design approach, where the work has had an iterative structure divided into two loops. Each loop consisted of qualitative data collection methods, idea generation processes, and prototyping - with appropriately selected methods within the framework of service design and the project’s scope. The focus has been on understanding the main stakeholders in a food delivery service to create a holistic perspective of what roles and needs they have in such a service system. The report presents two concept proposals for what a service system can look like to create a premium and sustainable food delivery service. Concept 1 is of a smaller-scale and easy-to-implement character, where CAKE and the restaurant group are expanding their current collaboration. Concept 2 is a proposal for a more scaled-up concept that involves several actors and strives to be able to replace the use of existing services. The concept proposals take the needs and wishes of the stakeholders and users into account, where the focus lies on letting each actor do what lies within their core business. The concept proposals are strengthened with suggestions of features that are believed to create a premium experience in a food delivery service by creating a unique added value.