This study examines the relationship between the product structuring principles chosen in modular product families and the business results of companies. In the three case studies of the article, it can be seen that products that meet the modularity definitions discussed in the literature have been able to utilise the benefits of modularity in a very varied way. In one business case, the effect of modularity on business has been negative. In two other cases, the effect has been positive - in one of these even the profitability of the business has significantly improved. The aim of this article is to identify whether product designing consistently has been following some product structuring principles previously mentioned in modularisation literature or whether case studies bring new principles to consciousness. In all case studies, the product structuring principles used are also discussed in the previous modularisation studies at a varying extent. In the discussion section, we raise the question of whether the recording and use of product structuring principles in design briefs could lead to making the product design decisions that affect the business positively.

Studies of product architecture identify a mirroring process between the product and the organisation. Parallel, empirical studies of effectual entrepreneurship show an accumulation of commitments between stakeholders while negotiating the features of the product in a similar fashion to product mirroring. This paper presents a study that looks at the effects of mirroring architectural complexity in early stages of entrepreneurship. The survey asked participants to interpret parametrically generated artefacts with the purpose of starting a new firm. Responses were analysed for complexity in the lexical semantic structure of ideas. Results show that the effects of artefact complexity are not as straightforward as hypothesised and provide evidence that suggests an important role of artefact morphology in entrepreneurial ideation. These findings support a model of product architecture mirroring that is filtered by design morphology.

A common strategy which has in many cases become a necessity in product developing companies is to apply platform thinking to some extent. Engineer-to-order (ETO) companies are firms that need to invest in a significant amount engineering time in each product ordered by customers. These companies have in the past been known to not be fully able to apply platform strategies. An area of concern to product development is the design and manufacture of machine tools aimed for part manufacturing which is a large investment and a critical bottle neck. As a response to these challenges the design platform (DP) concept was developed which is founded on the re-use of company assets. This paper aims to investigate the application of the DP in a company designing and producing unique high-pressure die casting tools for different applications and customers. To enable companies of this character to utilize platform thinking to a higher degree and thus increase the efficiency in product development, a focus is set on modelling and managing relations within the DP. In addition, a PDM system setup is proposed together with an integrated support application for the realisation in industry.

The aerospace industry experiences a considerable growth in product development costs. Many research works aim at identifying evolution laws characterizing this large-scale phenomenon and at developing design strategies which could help mitigate it. This paper aims to clarify the evolution dynamics governing this phenomenon by studying how the products delivered by these costly projects evolve with time. Increasing complexity is often held responsible for surging costs. If complexity is generally defined as the price to be paid for improving product functionalities, it is rarely specified whether the improvement affects existing functionalities or involves new ones. We aim to identify the patterns of cost growth which can be associated with phenomena of existing functionalities upgrade and new functionalities introduction, and to identify the associated design capabilities that designers need to deploy in order to keep product change and cost growth under control. To that end, we introduce a model which generates curves, each of which featuring a trend of cost growth, specific to a scenario of product evolution and being interpretable as a signature of a strategy used by designers.

Visual representation of product architecture models is crucial in complex engineering systems design. However, when the number of entities in a model is large and when multiple levels of hierarchies are included, visual representations currently in use need to be more intuitive. As such, improved visual representations that enable better system overview and better communication of essential product- related information among design participants are needed. This paper uses interactive information visualisation techniques – collapsible hierarchical tree, edge bundling and alluvial diagram – and provides the foundations of a computerised tool that improves the traceability of connections between design domains, including stakeholders, requirements, functions, behaviours and structure. The case of a cleaning robot is used as an illustrative example. The approach supports designers by providing an enhanced overview during the development of complex product architecture models, in particular in the communication with external stakeholders, in the identification of change propagation paths across several design domains, and in capturing the design rationale of previous design decisions.

Within the third wave of digital service innovation, framing is becoming increasingly complex. Accordingly, design practice finds itself in a transition from designing single service solutions that are shared, to designing systemic solutions that are shareable. We report a case study in which we use Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) to analyze the framing process that a designer went through when designing a digital service for a Connected Care startup. Results show the importance of the designer's activity awareness and the challenge of dealing with relational complexity when framing the digital service innovation. With this work, we hope to inspire researchers and practitioners with the potential that CHAT has to offer for the reflective practice in digital service innovations.

With the spread of product-service systems as business models the life cycle costs are of increasing importance as a measurement of product cost. A key factor that drives these costs is the desired reliability of the products used to provide the service. Since the customer usually expects as uninterrupted service availability, it is imperative to achieve the the required reliability. Therefore a large variety of methods has been developed to maximize the reliability of a product. But these approaches focus on the maximization of the reliability and disregard the resulting product costs. This can lead to designs that over perform concerning their reliability requirements but also exceed their target costs. Which will result in the product-service system not being competitive in the marketplace or lowering the company's profit. This paper shows an approach on how to use markov chains to enable a quick comparison of life cycle costs from different product-service system designs With this it will be possible to make better informed decisions about the costs of a system while still meeting the reliability targets.

It is estimated that about half of all innovations, such as innovations in mechatronic product-service systems (PSS), fail to deliver the expected benefits to the adopting organization. Different studies point out that one of the main reasons for this is an ineffective implementation process.

In this paper, we argue that, apart from several organizational challenges, insufficient integration of technical and social aspects is one of the reasons for ineffective innovation implementation in the environment of mechatronic PSS.

In order to remedy this weakness, this paper builds on the work of interdisciplinary research collaboration. Experts from technical, socio-technical, and management fields integrate their work within a conceptual innovation implementation management system (IIMS). This IIMS is capable of capturing various methods and models that foster the socio-technical integration in mechatronic PSS. The approach is assessed in a lab-scale demonstration case that is representative of industrial environments.

The presented approach supports an effective innovation implementation process, while the IIMS facilitates individual alignments for future practitioners.

Little study has been done on the adoption of End-of-Life (EoL) strategies on the medical devices industry, despite the reasons why it is an important area of study for the implementation of circularity. The rates of waste in the medical field are alarming and tend to grow. Though presenting a wide potential for EoL strategies implementation, the medical field is also inherently challenging, considering the rigid regulations and product's risk to patients life. This paper analyses 17 Product-Service System case studies identified in the literature. Eleven of them are from various fields of industry, whereas the other six are applied to the medical devices industry. The adoption of EoL strategies - namely repair, reconditioning, remanufacture and recycling - is analysed in each case and compared for the two categories of cases. This adoption is related to the sources of value creation in Circular Economy, to the PSS typology and, at last, special EoL treatment for medical devices is discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the challenges in the servitization journey of product-centric firms from an ecosystem perspective, considering both intra-firm and inter-firm levels. Prior research addresses the challenges of servitization in many sectors from different perspectives. However, the majority of studies primarily focus on the provider of an offering. There is a lack of in-depth studies on analysing servitization challenges from the broader set of network actors including customers, suppliers, and sub-suppliers at the intra-firm and inter-firm levels. A multiple case study method was used to analyse five product-centric firms from different industries that were engaged in servitization. At intra- firm level, our analysis shows that ‘coordination’ is a major challenge for the provider, supplier, and sub-suppliers, and that ‘uncertainty’ and ‘risk’ is a major challenge for the provider, customer, and supplier. At inter-firm level, ‘partnership management’ found to be a most significant challenge for provider, customer, supplier, and sub-suppliers. The study contributes to the discussion of the relational view approach for servitization research.

A growing trend of aging population of China has brought tremendous pressure on the domestic care system, and community education is one of the important content for elderly services. Based on the framework of SAPAD, the community English class in Guangzhou City is taken for case study. Depth research on three stakeholeders-the elderly, social workers and volunteers are carried out by interview, user observation and field research. 6 levels (physical level, syntactic level, empirical level, semantic level, pragmatic level and social level) are extracted based on SAPAD framework, and the behavior- object-significance mapping is completed. Significant clusters of multiple users at different levels are analyzed, and 16 core significant clusters are jointly built. By linking with clustering results of the syntactic level, 6 new function modules are obtained. Finally, the community elderly education service system is built through personas, service blueprint, touch points and storyboard. The new service system will improve learning efficiency, satisfactions and emotional appeals for the elderly, and work efficiency of social workers and volunteers.

Product-service systems (PSS) are being increasingly employed as opportunities to keep innovating. The design of PSS value propositions should focus on the value visualization for stakeholders. However, the PSS representations are still oriented to the customer’ perspective and focus on a process or technological role. This study aims to represent the PSS value proposition in a structured-diagram adapted from the journey map method in combination with the use of the elements of value. A case research was conducted with a high-tech agricultural start-up for representing its value proposition by following a process founded in the practices of journey mapping. Qualitative data analysis was employed to associate the elements of value with the solution, and to verify the consistency of the results. The representation enables the visualization of the stakeholders’ perception regarding the content of the solution as well as the potential value that may be related to it. The experience-centric perspective derived from the journey map associated with the value-related information provides a richer view of the PSS value proposition, which can lead to reflections regarding the solution.

Roadmapping has been addressed as a management approach used to support strategic and innovation planning of organisations over recent decades. This paper introduces a new standpoint for addressing roadmapping through the application of service theories as a way for tackling the demand for the digitalisation of roadmapping. To this end, the concept of roadmapping as a service offer is developed and employed to analyse three customer perspectives of roadmapping: owners and sponsors, team members, and facilitators. Based on a literature review and interviews with roadmapping experts, customer jobs, pains, and gains are described for each of the perspectives. In the end, the paper provides insights for the understanding of the concept of roadmapping service and opens opportunities for further theoretical and empirical developments around this new path. These results are part of a broader research project exploring the digitalisation of roadmapping.

We study a DevOps software development process for a Product-Service System (PSS) using a design structure matrix (DSM) representation. We find unique features such as nested, planned iterations at differing rates which are not evident in conventional engineering development projects. We describe the impact of integrating ongoing operations into a development process and identify some of the enablers that lead to adoption of a DevOps process. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings and raise questions for further research.

Product Service Systems (PSS) are increasingly complex and collaborative. For instance, manufacturing companies, service providers, and other companies collaborate and jointly develop and operate a PSS (ex: smart grid), where its constituent elements are managed and operated independently. Managerial independence and operational independence are commonly considered key characteristics of a System of Systems (SoS). Hence, a collaborative PSS exhibits System of Systems (SoSs) characteristics. These systems have previously been introduced as Product Service Systems of Systems (PSSoSs). In this paper, we propose to identify relevant uncertainties in the PSSoS design process. For this purpose, we go beyond the PSSoS concept definition and propose a comprehensive framework for PSS and PSSoS characterization. Moreover, based on both a literature review and an industrial diagnosis, we identify PSSoSs-specific design uncertainties.

Product-service systems (PSS) are solutions that integrate product and services in order to fulfill the customers’ needs by means of greater value in use. Multiple stakeholders should be involved in the design process for the development of a successful PSS value proposition. However, it is not clear who could be the potential stakeholders of a PSS. The aims of this study are to consolidate the stakeholders cited in PSS case studies and to reveal the terms used to refer to “stakeholder” in PSS literature. A systematic literature review was carried out, and an inductive content analysis procedure was applied. A total of 28 stakeholders were listed from the selected studies, whose PSS cases were classified as use- oriented or result-oriented services. Multiple terminologies are used to refer to stakeholders. This study contributes for showing the potential stakeholders that can be involved and engaged in the PSS design and operation. Also, it indicates the terms from which they can be addressed in the PSS literature.

In order to operate in line with the circular economy (CE) concept, companies and other stakeholders need to work together to enable the circulation and cascading of resources. Although the need for proactive stakeholder management is a common theme in recent work on CE, little work has been dedicated to creating prescriptive methods for the co-design of CE value chains (CEVCs) focusing on selecting strategic partners, when to engage them and in what capacity. Following calls to connect the emerging CE literature with literature from existing bodies of knowledge, this paper explores the theoretical foundations of a CEVCs co-design method. Specifically, this paper explores resource-base view (RBV); resource dependency theory (RDT); and actor-network theory (ANT), and synthesises an outline for the co-design process of CEVCs. Reflections on the process link it to the extant co-design literature and explain how the process can be used for method and tool development.

In last years, an increasing attention on environmental matters is registered. Companies face environmental matters to increase the environmental performances of their products, forced by numerous legislations, normative and protocols and induced to the growing attention of consumers toward environmentally friendly products. However, observing the industrial context, it emerges there are several barriers for implementation of eco-design strategies inside design departments. The paper presents a tool which aims at both providing a basic guide on environmental sustainability issues and favouring the knowledge sharing among the different actors of the product design process. The core of the tool is a repository in which company materials, organized and collected in different forms, are collected. The repository contains several parts: training, guidelines, knowledge and milestone, accordingly to the type, structure and form of materials stored. The eco-design tool functions, structure, and workflow are presented and then preliminary test cases are described.

In Europe there is a common vision to transform the economy into a sustainable one by 2050 which among other changes, calls for companies to address their offerings in a more resource-efficient manner. Therefore, efforts to provide design support namely, methods, guidelines and tools to specifically address natural resources and impact of products and services have been increasing. Moreover, companies of all sizes should integrate environmental concerns as early as possible to select profitable and environmentally sound offerings. However, knowledge of the analysis and evaluation of resource- efficient offerings seems currently insufficient especially with regards to similarities and differences among different company sizes. In this paper, the study of eight case companies: 3 large companies and 5 SMEs, shows how industry addresses the analysis and evaluation of their offerings. Commonalities among SMEs and large companies include decisions made by strategic or managerial boards, the use of mock-ups and project management skills, among others. These findings could help academics in providing relevant, useful and usable support to industry.

Building construction is one of the fastest growing industries in India and it puts a huge burden on its limited natural resources. Fired clay bricks are one of the major constituent materials for the construction industry and it produces a huge amount of greenhouse gases. This research tries to highlight the use of alternative materials and how they can be modulated to suit the Indian construction industry. Bio-brick or agro-waste based brick is one such material that has the potential to be a sustainable and cost-effective solution. It acts as good heat and sound insulator and at the same time has overall negative carbon footprint. Additionally, it also acts as a deterrent to stubble burning, prevalent in northern India which causes severe air pollution. Due to its low density, it reduces dead load in high rise structures, thereby making RCC construction more economical. The study also highlights the use of Bio-brick in various areas of a structure. Another important objective of this research is to inspire and motivate architects, designers, researchers and builders to encourage and support the development of such sustainable and eco-sensitive material in construction industry.