Abstract
User expectations regarding new products and services are evolving rapidly, forcing innovative organizations to explore new avenues for innovation, combining products and services. This paper focuses on the integrative design of product–service systems (PSSs) and builds on the servitization and service-based innovation literature. Many tools have been proposed for designing integrated PSS, with the intent to generate economic and/or sustainable impact. In this article, we focus on tools being used for bringing the user experience and intangibles in the design process. Although the literature is rich with tools and methods to optimize the PSS design process, it does not consider the full array of methods and their impact. This lack of research attention might hinder organizations developing PSS. Using in-depth interviews, this qualitative research systematically combines the extant conceptual literature on PSS design tools and processes with expert insights, thereby contextualizing how to lower thresholds in PSS design processes and how to increase the effectiveness of PSS design tools. The paper contributes to the literature on servitization and PSS by explicitly identifying twenty-one preconditions that support the PSS design process while integrating product and service innovation in close relation to the end-user.
Highlights
On a daily basis, social and psychological aspirations and environmental concerns push user expectancy levels toward new horizons
We identify twenty-one conditions that seem necessary for a streamlined product–service systems (PSSs) design process and an optimal use of frequently applied PSS design tools
Research Framing Methodology design research is about developing an understanding and building to the disciplinary knowledge offraming design, in our case related to the pheThis theory research that paperadds uses Research in Design Context (RIDC) as its methodnomenon
Summary
Social and psychological aspirations and environmental concerns push user expectancy levels toward new horizons. Organizations are systematically rethinking their business models [1]. One of these innovation and transformation routes is the development of a product–service system (PSS), i.e., the design of integrated systems of products and services delivered by one or more socioeconomic partners and designed to fulfill a specific customer need [2,3]. Boehm and Thomas [3] accentuate the integrated nature and the centrality of the end-user when developing a PSS: “A PSS is an integrated bundle of products and services which aims at creating customer utility and generating value”. There seems to be limited focus on how product and service elements should be combined in the design process [5]
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