Automated Vendor Selection for Industrial Service Shares

Abstract

Industrial Product-Service Systems (IPS2) fulfil specific customer needs in the industrial area due to the appropriate combination of product and service shares. Through the customer individual orientation of IPS2 the need for identification of suitable network partners for service delivery arises.In this paper a method for the automated vendor selection for industrial service shares will be developed and evaluated. To achieve this goal, an investigation of possible service shares in the field of machine tools is necessary. Subsequently the parameters of the identified service shares and their potential values will be assigned.The comparison of defined parameter values of the customer's query and all registered providers facilitates the automated mediation of appropriate providers. For IPS2, the presented approach holds several benefits compared to existing approaches. These include the ability of standardised comparison of the providers’ potential for service delivery and the efficient selection of appropriate providers under consideration of uncertainty.Subsequently an application example of possible service shares for a customer request in the machine tool domain will be given. An outlook on further work and future potential will complete the paper.