Product-Service Systems Providers Research Articles

From a traditional steel producer towards an industrial product-service systems provider in the German offshore wind market - a system-oriented practical case study

Globalisation and overcapacities lead to increasing competition within the steel market. Hence, steel producers are forced to enter promising markets like the offshore wind market. Moreover, they have to offer innovative products like industrial product-service systems (IPS2). Both entering the offshore wind market and offering IPS2 are challenging (each aspect per se is ambitious and above all the combination) since these two aspects demand for a shift of the steel producer's existing business model. Especially, the adaption of the key resources within the business model is challenging. In particular, the steel producer needs to acquire new competencies. Against this background, there is an urgent need for an integrative analysis of the decision-making problem concerning the acquisition of these competencies. For this purpose, the system-oriented and holistic approach of system dynamics is used within a practical case study.

From a traditional steel producer towards an industrial product-service systems provider in the German offshore wind market - a system-oriented practical case study

From a traditional steel producer towards an industrial product-service systems provider in the German offshore wind market - a system-oriented practical case study

Employee motivation in product-service system providers

This research investigates how intrinsic and extrinsic motivation factors contribute to employee motivation in providers of product-service systems (PSS). Employee motivation determines the quality of the delivered service and is thus an area of great importance for PSS providers. We present rich case-based data collected through semi-structured interviews, a survey and secondary sources. The analysis showed the particularly high importance of intrinsic and individual motivation factors such as the fulfilling nature of the work and skill development showing the ownership and pride service employees took in their work. Further, the organisation needs to set the context of high employee motivation by enabling flexibility and performance feedback. Our research contributes to the literature by providing a first empirical study of employee motivation in PSS providers and thus providing important insights on the implementation of a servitisation strategy.

Development of a Novel Co-Creative Framework for Redesigning Product Service Systems

Product service systems (PSS) have been researched in academia and implemented in industry for more than a decade, and they bring plenty of benefits to various stakeholders, such as: customers, PSS providers, the environment, as well as society. However, the adoption of PSS in industry so far is limited compared to its potentials. One of the reasons leading to this limitation is that PSS design is tricky. So far, there are several methods to design PSS, but each of them has certain limitations. This paper proposes a co-creative framework, which is constructed using the concept of user co-creation. This novel framework allows designers to design PSS effectively in terms of users’ perception of PSS value, design quality and evaluation. The authors also introduce a case study to demonstrate and validate the proposed framework.

Interview study: How can Product-Service Systems increase customer acceptance of innovations?

Since customer acceptance is responsible for the success of innovative products, this study investigates how Product-Service Systems (PSS) influence customer acceptance of innovations. Using the example of electric vehicles (EV) in carpools, interviews were held with four PSS providers and four PSS customers from Germany and Sweden. The results of the interviews were then analyzed according to Rogers’ theory of the diffusion of innovations: Providing innovative products as PSS can increase customer acceptance by reducing performance gaps that exist between innovative and existing technologies. The main gaps found with EVs are their limited range and high purchase costs. Customers perceive those gaps as less considerable if they rent EVs in a carpool.

Development and Evaluation of Solar Energy B2B Solutions

In order to achieve successful product-service system (PSS) development and commercialization, a methodical approach is inevitable. This approach must be conducted in the development and testing processes of system components as well as in the entire system. Innovative solutions have to gain a high maturity in a minimum time period to put advantages over competitors into practice before they are outdated. In India, distributions of solar home systems are spreading dynamically, but are facing problems in their customer relations. Planning, installation and maintenance of the systems are all weak points in this field. Throughout this project called MEVIS, an integrated solution was developed in order to eliminate these problems: an innovative charge controller as well as an information system, which are both technical components of a business- to-business service solution. In addition to the technical function of the charge controller, the added value is achieved through the accessibility of employees to information, enabling them to more efficiently carry out processes by supporting their decision making or planning according to their individual roles. The overall design was carried out utilizing PSS development methods, elaborated at Fraunhofer IPK and TU Berlin, in order to enable a company to become a PSS provider. During the development process, the evaluation was carried out at several stages. According to the PSS V-model development, results have been tested at an early stage by a proof-of-concept and agent-based simulation technologies. The detailed modeling of components, actors and the environment in the design stage facilitate the creation of the simulation model. This represents the first virtual integration of the various domains in the development after the PSS V-model. With this integrated system model, extensive studies regarding the interaction of the components during the business processes can be conducted along various stages of the development process. The final field test of the overall system was conducted in Bangalore, India. The selected partner, Selco Foundation, has vast experience in distributing solar home systems and carries out all lifecycle activities on itself. To solve their problems in solar energy distribution, the partner uses the developed charge controller and gets the aggregated information according to the needs of the relevant service. The findings from the application of methods of development, evaluation and testing are described in this paper. It analyzes how the provider was enabled to make the transition from a service provider to a PSS provider. The analysis also evaluates how these methods have the power to support future providers to bring innovative business ideas for integrated solutions to a high maturity without having years of experience in PSS.

Framework for Analyzing Customer Involvement in Product-service Systems

In manufacturing, product-service systems (PSS) that create value by coupling a physical product and a service have been attracting attention. In PSS, it is important for providers to enhance the value-in-use that is perceived by customers in utilizing a product and/or service. Customers play a key role in realizing such value and therefore, are regarded as co-producers in the value-creation process. Although customer involvement plays an essential role in realizing value, previous research has revealed its risks. Therefore, PSS providers are required to adopt a suitable strategy for involving customers. However, current studies do not necessarily offer much guidance on determining such strategies. To solve this problem, this paper proposes a framework that analyzes the benefits and risks of customer involvement in PSS development. This framework aims to identify factors that influence benefits and risks from the viewpoints of characteristics of a PSS and its customer involvement. The effectiveness of the proposed framework is validated through a case study.

Product-Service Systems 設計のためのコンテキストのモデル化手法

Recently, value-in-context has become a key concept in enhancing the value of Product-Service Systems (PSS). The philosophy of value-in-context is that the value of products and services varies depending on the contexts where customers use the products and services. Based on this philosophy, products and services should apply to customer requirements depending on context. Context where customer uses the products and services is very often different from context assumed in design phase. Therefore, assumed value is very often not created. Creating or changing customer’s context is effective for solving this problem. To create or change customer’s context, PSS provider needs to change elements of “Ba” where customer uses products and services. However, it is difficult to make an appropriate choice of elements of “Ba” designers create or change. To support the appropriate choice, this paper proposes a framework for extracting customer’s context. The proposed method supports designers to understand relationships among value-in-context and elements of “Ba”.

What's in it for the Provider? The Case of a Telecom Vendor's Value Capturing from the Transition to Product-Service Systems

In adopting highly integrated Product-Service Systems (PSS), incentive structures change and the value attainable for providers throughout the lifecycle becomes an issue of growing complexity. Nonetheless, value for PSS providers has up to now not been considered in a multidimensional fashion. In an effort to move towards a characterization of provider's value, an offering in the information communication technology sector was examined through an investigation with ten staff-members of Ericsson, Sweden. This led to a value-categorization, which can be utilized in the PSS design process to enhance the value captured throughout the lifecycle beyond immediate monetary benefit. In an effort to provide general learnings, the results are discussed with a focus on PSS business models, PSS design and management communication. Overall, the results presented provide a more comprehensive picture of what a provider has to gain from a PSS offering throughout its entire lifecycle.

Supporting the Performance Assessment of Product-service Systems During the Use Phase

Companies providing Product-Service Systems (PSS) can gain competitive advantages by addressing the customer needs in a more precise way than regular product manufacturer. However, achieving these benefits also increases the responsibility on the company's side because the value of a PSS is delivered during the use phase. In many cases a provider stays the owner of the PSS and is thus responsible for the performance during the use. Accordingly, the PSS provider acts not only as a manufacturer but also as a service provider, which requires a constant monitoring of the PSS performance (e.g., service availability or customer satisfaction). The implementation of a performance measurement system is an approach to cope with the additional responsibilities during the use phase. However, different publications exist that offer support for the development phase of PSS but the performance assessment during the use phase is not addressed sufficiently, even though the importance in mentioned by different authors. This paper thus proposes two generic processes to address the identified need for the performance assessment of PSS. The first process guides through the implementation of an entire performance measurement system, and the other process describes the development of PSS specific key performance indicators (KPIs). The proposed approach applies KPIs to a new context and supports PSS providers in implementing a performance measurement system, which allows them to initiate measure to increase the PSS performance.

Evaluating the Readiness to Transform Towards a Product-service System Provider by a Capability Maturity Modelling Approach

A key capability for the future competitiveness of manufacturing companies is the development and delivery of integrated solutions. This comes along with a fundamental business transformation of the business model, structures, processes and behavior as well.However the majority of the initialized transformation efforts fail in the very beginning, because the factors and mechanisms of transformations are not fully understood. Although the concept of readiness is known as a crucial component and enabler for change processes, only few researchers have developed an assessment tool to measure companies’ change readiness for upcoming transformation projects. Therefore, this paper addresses this issue and introduces a concept to evaluate the readiness to transform towards solution business into a product-service system provider.

PSS Sustainability Assessment and Monitoring Framework (PSS-SAM) – Case Study of a Multi-module PSS Solution

Business-to-business Product Service System (PSS) solutions are characterized by intensive interaction among PSS providers, suppliers, and customers, as well as an integration of physical and immaterial solution modules. These factors increase the complexity and interdisciplinary of such offerings. Furthermore, the characteristics complicate sustainability assessment and monitoring of PSS, as environmental, social, and economic concerns have to be integrated into a PSS by minimizing negative impacts of the PSS on these three axes throughout the PSS lifecycle. The indicator-based framework “PSS Sustainability Assessment and Monitoring (PSS-SAM)” has been specifically developed to support managers and decision makers in dealing with the complex situation described above. This framework considers the most important sustainability aspects throughout the entire PSS lifecycle and adheres to European standard requirements. The results of a previous work have already confirmed the usability of the framework to assess the sustainability of one PSS module (availability of spindle) within a single PSS lifecycle phase (operating phase). The aim of this paper is to present the improvements of the PSS-SAM framework that facilitate sustainability assessment of PSS solutions with multiple modules throughout their entire lifecycle. The improved framework has been validated by a case study of an industrial micro-production PSS solution including multiple modules (spindle, maintenance, training, etc.). The long-term goal is to develop IT solutions that support the sustainability assessment of PSS.

Quality Assessment of Technical Product-service Systems in the Machine Tool Industry

A stand-alone technical product in many cases is not sufficient to fulfill customers’ requirements. Machine tool manufacturers have already reacted to this fact by offering combinations of products and services, commonly known as technical Product-Service Systems (PSS). Today, nearly every machine tool manufacturer offers PSS. In order to stay competitive, quality leadership of PSS is a promising competitive strategy for machine tool manufacturers. Thus, it is necessary to develop a PSS specific quality management. However, key performance indicators and criteria for assessing the quality of PSS in the machine tool industry are currently missing.The aim of this paper is to present a customer-oriented approach for assessing the quality of PSS in the machine tool industry. This serves to ensure and continuously improve a long-term business relationship between a PSS provider and its customers. Use cases from the machine tool industry build the basis for this paper. To begin with, existing quality criteria of products and services in the machine tool industry are analyzed. These criteria are gathered by interviews with machine tool manufacturers, customer surveys and literature research. Next, interdependencies between product and service quality are identified. Then PSS-specific quality criteria are developed, which consider product and service quality criteria as well as their interdependencies. Finally, key performance indicators are presented in order to assess and benchmark the quality of PSS.

Knowledge Evaluation for PSS Providers

Manufacturing companies being within the transformation process into a product-service system (PSS) provider face the challenge that they have to build up knowledge for successfully providing services. This paper presents an approach for evaluating the knowledge within a company and to specify the required knowledge for providing a specific PSS. Based on that, the knowledge gap can be derived. The basis are Multiple-Domain Matrix (MDM) based knowledge maps that model employees of the companies, their tasks as well as the knowledge required for fulfilling the tasks. This paper contributes furthermore by enhancing the MDM-based knowledge maps by assessing knowledge levels. The approach is illustrated in a case study within a company of the mechanical engineering sector.

Maintenance Task Classification: Towards Automated Robotic Maintenance for Industry

The business model of high-value capital assets is shifting from purchasing a physical product to acquiring a result or a function supported by the product combined with a number of related services. One such service, maintenance, is perhaps the most efficient way to keep the function available during the product lifecycle. Automation has played a vital role in industry throughout history, particularly within the production line. With the movement towards providing product service systems the need for services such as maintenance are increasingly important for a manufactured product, and the pull towards automation may drive down costs and improve performance time. Although currently robotic applications to maintenance beyond monitoring and inspection tasks are not common, this research aims at exploring the feasibility of future maintenance robots that can perform a variety of maintenance tasks. As its first step, this work looks first at investigation, cataloging and classification of a number of maintenance tasks using standard industrial engineering techniques such as time motion, method or workflow analysis. This involves decomposing the maintenance work into a number of ‘unit tasks’ required to be performed in order to accomplish the specified maintenance.

A method for human resource evaluation to realise high-quality PSSs

A Product-Service System (PSS) includes numerous human interactions that are critical factors for improving customer satisfaction. PSS providers, therefore, have to organise appropriate human resources from the viewpoint of customer requirements. This paper proposes an engineering method to select appropriate human resources for the PSS design. Specifically, a function formulated by the neural network is proposed to predict customer satisfaction realised by each human resource so that each human resource can be prioritised in terms of customer satisfaction. The application used in this study validated the prediction accuracy of the proposed function as well as the effectiveness for allocating human resources in PSS design.

A requirements data model for product service systems

Product service systems (PSS) are bundles of physical technological elements and service elements that are integrated to solve customer problems. In practice, most components of PSS are developed independently from each other, which leads to problems with coordination of development activities and integration of PSS components. Therefore, an integrated requirements engineering for PSS is needed that deals with the involvement of developers from product engineering, software engineering, and service engineering, as well as the inherent complexity of the PSS and the development process. In a case study with the development department of a PSS provider, we analyzed requirements documents and conducted expert interviews. We identified problems in the development, for example, that requirements on different levels of abstraction are intermingled, rationales for requirements are missing, and the concretization of requirements is unclear. To solve these problems, we propose a requirements data model (RDMod) for requirements to PSS. An RDMod describes different types of requirements and the relations between them. Thus, it is a scheme for the concretization of the requirements, which especially addresses the problems of structuring the requirements, enabling traceability, and finding conflicts. We then used an analytical evaluation, a feature-based evaluation and a retrospective application with requirements analysts of the industry partner. In a joint workshop, we specified requirements for a PSS with the RDMod. In structured interviews, we analyzed the perceived advantages of the RDMod. The experts confirmed that the RDMod is applicable in their development and it provides a clear structure for the requirements and therefore helps overcoming the identified problems.

What uncertainty?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to follow a paper by Rexfelt and Hiort af Ornäs published in JMTM in 2009, which dealt with consumer acceptance of product service systems (PSS). This topic is important as it is a sustainable business model. It is proposed that the uncertainty consumers have towards the suitability of PSS to their needs can be further explored using existing management tools such as SERVQUAL, a tool to measure customer satisfaction and perceived quality.Design/methodology/approachThis study, supported by the British Academy, utilized qualitative research on two types of respondents: businesses that can be classified eco‐efficient PSS providers; and consumers. The providers were administered structured in‐depth interviews, and the respondents are Mr Chas Ball, Director of Policy at Car Plus, a trade association representing car clubs, and Mr Jonathan Hampson, Director of Streetcar, the largest car club company. Car clubs may be considered a type of eco‐efficient PSS. Consumers were involved in four focus groups (20 participants in total). The questioning route used in the two focus groups focused the attention of the participants on two types of eco‐efficient PSS provision: one represented by car‐sharing services, such as the ones provided by City Car Club and Street Car, mentioned in section 2; the other was an hypothetical provision of a bundle of maternity equipment and services, such as baby prams, baby car seats, travel cots and similar. The inclusion of this “hypothetical” provision was inspired by a study conducted in Sweden by Mont et al.FindingsConsumers are favourable to PSS provisions in principle; however they have concerns on whether this type of provision will live up to their expectations. These concerns are that the PSS might not perform satisfactorily in terms of its assurance, reliability, responsiveness, empathy and tangible components. The attractive aspect of PSS to consumers is as a “bundle” or products and services where the product can be replaced to accommodate consumers' needs. Business managers and policy makers will need to devise communications to reassure consumers that PSS provision meets the requirements set out by the SERVQUAL scale.Originality/valueThis paper identifies the applicability of a service quality measurement tool, SERVQUAL, to product service systems (PSS) and it extends the knowledge on consumers' acceptance of PSS.

PSS Board: a structured tool for product–service system process visualization

The product–service system (PSS) is a system in which its integrated products and services jointly fulfill customer needs. The current research proposes a structured tool called the PSS Board to visualize the PSS process. This is a matrix board where the customer activities, state of the products, services, dedicated infrastructures, and partners are placed in rows, and the general PSS process steps are placed in columns. The visualized PSS on the board shows how the PSS provider and its partners aid customers' job execution process. Previous PSS cases are visualized based on the proposed PSS Board; the utility of the PSS Board is also identified. The current research can serve as an effective basis to analyze PSS from the perspective of fulfilling customer needs, thus supporting companies in diagnosing and elaborating their respective PSSs.

A novel framework to link Prognostics and Health Management and Product–Service Systems using online simulation

Product–Service Systems (PSS) and Prognostics and Health Management (PHM) have so far been researched individually in different domains and as unrelated research theme. However, to guarantee the availability of the asset, which is a typical demand in some PSS contracts, it is fundamental for PSS providers to be able to properly manage the asset's lifetime variability in order to avoid unscheduled downtimes and contract penalties. This paper describes part of a research project to investigate how PHM can support more effective fulfilment of some PSS contracts. In particular, this paper aims to present a novel framework to link PHM and PSS using online simulation. The paper also presents a prototype of the online simulation model and three experimental cases comparing the outcomes of the online simulation model against those obtained from the traditional simulation model.