Research Article Decision-Making Approach to Selecting Optimal Platform of Service Variants Vladimir Modrak, 1 Slavomir Bednar, 1 and Pavol Semanco 2 1 Faculty of Manufacturing Technologies, Technical University of Kosice, Bayerova 1, 08001 Presov, Slovakia 2 Lear Corporation Seating Slovakia s.r.o., Solivarska 1/A, 08001 Presov, Slovakia Correspondence should be addressed to Vladimir Modrak; vladimir.modrak@tuke.sk Received 22 January 2016; Revised 9 May 2016; Accepted 22 May 2016 Academic Editor: Feng Yang Copyright © 2016 Vladimir Modrak et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Nowadays, it is anticipated that service sector companies will be inspired to follow mass customization trends of industrial sector. However, services are more abstract than products and therefore concepts for mass customization in manufacturing domain cannot be transformed without a methodical change. is paper is focused on the development of a methodological framework to support decisions in a selection of optimal platform of service variants when compatibility problems between service options occurred. e approach is based on mutual relations between waste and constrained design space entropy. For this purpose, soſtware for quantification of constrained and waste design space is developed. Practicability of the methodology is presented on a realistic case. 1. Introduction In general, services are defined as every kind of activity that contributes to the satisfaction of customer needs [1]. ey play an ever-increasing importance in industrialized economies due to the need for the right balance between industrial and service sector. Particularly in changing busi- ness environment, there is a challenge for service providers to strengthen their position on the competitive market through innovative business strategies [2]. ey also involve the advancing trend of transition from standard services to mass customized service packages [3]. However, mass customization is mostly related to tan- gible products and to manufacturing processes, whereas customization in services is studied only marginally [4]. On the other hand, growing mass customization tendencies induce that practically every product today has a service component in it. Service variants in terms of mass customized environ- ment are usually created for particular user groups. e problem with variety is not variety itself or increasing size of variety. e problem arises in the design process with an elimination of variants that are impractical due to presence of constraint(s). Such unviable variants are unadvisable for customers, because they lose time and time is too valuable for them to be wasted. Consideration of conflicts among variants causes enormous problems in the product or service design [5]. is suggests that a more integrated approach to mass customization is needed, which considers equally both the architecture design process and the subsequent implementation into configuration systems. In this context we propose by using information entropy theory a novel decision-making approach to selecting optimal platform of service variants. 2. Related Work 2.1. Related Trends in Mass Customization of Services. According to Zhang [6], recent growing trend and pressure on mass customization practice make companies expand their product and service mix better address preference of consumers. ElMaraghy et al. [7] state that this trend has several reasons including customers’ demand for new prod- uct functions and features, different regional requirements, large number of market segments with different needs, and so forth. Another reason of this trend lays in the fact that Hindawi Publishing Corporation Mathematical Problems in Engineering Volume 2016, Article ID 9840679, 8 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2016/9840679