Smart already at design time – Pattern-based smart service innovation in manufacturing

Abstract

Smart service innovation is the process of creating smart product-service systems (PSS) and novel data-driven service offerings. It is particularly challenging for manufacturing firms as they have to cope with the two transformational forces of digitalization and servitization at the same time, i.e., they have to both evaluate the potential of digital technologies for creating new business opportunities and overthink established business logics from transactional product sales towards relationship-oriented service and solution business. To support the early phases of corresponding innovation processes already at the design time of smart PSS, this article presents the Pattern-Based Smart Service Innovation (PBSSI) method. The method was developed following a design science research approach that involved a Delphi study for deriving value proposition patterns as one of its core elements and a multiple case study with manufacturing firms to demonstrate and evaluate the method’s utility for practitioners. The PBSSI method combines existing approaches to service design with newly developed and empirically grounded value proposition patterns for smart service. Evaluation feedback indicates that the PBSSI method is useful for online workshops and that it effectively supports the exploration and ideation in smart service innovation. In particular, it helps manufacturing firms to approach smart service innovation in a more customer-centric and systematic manner.