Evolutionary design framework for Smart PSS: Service engineering approach

doi:10.1016/j.aei.2020.101119

Advanced Engineering Informatics

Volume 45, August 2020, 101119

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aei.2020.101119 Get rights and content

Abstract

Digital technology is transforming industry, economy, and society. Under this digitalization trend, a new concept of product and service offerings, Smart PSS has been introduced. While the Smart PSS concept aiming at data-driven innovation attracts more attentions, there are two major challenges in designing Smart PSS. First, available data from digital technologies are actually limited by technical, financial, and social reasons. Second, the context of applying Smart PSS dynamically changes, which makes designed Smart PSS unfit to the target situation. To overcome these challenges, we propose an evolutionary design framework for Smart PSS. Our approach is based on the service engineering research, which has been contributing to the design and development of PSS. The proposed framework consists of three conceptual spaces and three cycles. The main features of the framework were two design cycles; in-system and ex-system design cycle. In-system design cycle is a process of creating and applying human knowledge for making the most use of data collected by digital technologies. Ex-system design cycle is to adapt to dynamic changes in contexts of the applied Smart PSS. We examine how the proposed framework works for designing a Smart PSS, with a case study about the digitalization of a restaurant business.

Introduction

Digital technology is transforming industry, economy, and society on a global scale. It is commonly acknowledged that data collected with digital technologies is a new resource that can promote innovations in various industries [1]. Advanced sensors attached to products and environments, known as the Internet of Things (IoT) are able to collect huge amounts of data about our life and work. The analysis of these data, for example, by using statistical methods and rapidly evolving machine learning techniques, is changing business processes in an efficient and effective way.

Digitalization promotes servitization [2], [3]. A Product-Service System (PSS) as an integrated product and service offering that delivers value in use to the customer [4], is naturally influenced by digitalization. Recently, new types of PSS which are supported or enhanced by digital technologies attract strong attentions. One of the representative concepts is Smart PSS [5]. The Smart PSS concept covers a wide variety of value propositions in different industries and life and work settings, while the traditional PSS concept mainly focuses on product-based industrial offerings [4], [9]. The Smart PSS concept is expected to create greater value with the full use of digital technologies. However, available data from digital technologies is actually limited by technical, financial, and social reasons. Smart PSS needs to be designed by considering and even overcoming this limitation. In addition, the context for applying Smart PSS dynamically changes, which makes a designed Smart PSS outdated rapidly. These aspects have not been sufficiently examined in the previous studies.

In this study, we propose an evolutionary design framework for Smart PSS to overcome these challenges. Our approach is based on the service engineering research, which has been contributing to the design and development of PSS. We examine how the proposed framework works for designing a Smart PSS, with a case study about the digitalization of a restaurant business.

This paper consists of the following sections. In Section 2, we explore related studies on Smart PSS and its design, specifically focusing on PSS and service engineering studies. Then, we illustrate two research challenges in Smart PSS design. In Section 3, we propose an evolutionary design framework that consists of three conceptual spaces and three cycles. Section 4 shows an illustrative case study for the proposed framework. After a discussion of the case study in Section 5, we provide concluding remarks in Section 6.

Section snippets

PSS and Smart PSS

The term Product-Service System (PSS) was coined in the late 1990s. Goedkoop et al. [7] defined PSS as “a system of products, services, networks of ‘players’ and supporting infrastructure that continuously strives to be competitive, satisfy customer needs and have a lower environmental impact than traditional business models.” As is seen in this definition, the original focus of PSS lies in environmental sustainability. Thus, life cycle analysis has been an important topic in PSS design [8].

Evolutionary design framework for Smart PSS

Based on the limitations of existing studies on Smart PSS design, we suggest an evolutionary design framework for Smart PSS, shown in Fig. 2.

In this framework, Smart PSS consists of three space concepts, including real space, cyber space and knowledge space. Specifically, knowledge space aims to fill the research gap about unobservable states of real space. In addition, this framework contains three cycles, including data cycle, in-system design cycle and ex-system design cycle, to drive and

Case study

We examine the proposed framework with an illustrative case study. This case is a series of research projects toward digitalization of service work at a Japanese cuisine restaurant company. This restaurant company has been keen on digitizing their service operations and has adopted various digital technologies such as an information sharing system of customer information and requests [59] and a demand forecasting method based on Point-Of-Sales (POS) data [60].

This case study covers four

Effectiveness for designing Smart PSS

We first discuss the effectiveness of the proposed framework toward the challenges in designing Smart PSS. Concerning the issue of unobservable states in real space, the first project showed the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The collected data were able to represent the trajectories of the waitstaff between the front and back offices, but it was difficult for the research members to tell why those trajectories appeared. The participants of the CSQCC session were able to interpret the

Conclusion

In this study, we explored the challenges in designing a Smart PSS from the theoretical perspective and developed a design framework to overcome these challenges. We first figured out the challenges in designing Smart PSS, caused by the theoretically and practically imperfect digital twin; these challenges are unobservable states and dynamic changes in real space. To respond to these challenges, we proposed an evolutionary design framework for Smart PSS based on the service engineering

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Evolutionary design framework for Smart PSS: Service engineering approach

Abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

PSS and Smart PSS

Evolutionary design framework for Smart PSS

Case study

Effectiveness for designing Smart PSS

Conclusion

Ind. Mark. Manage.

J. Clean. Prod.

CIRP Annals: Manuf. Technol.

CIRP Annals: Manuf. Technol.

J. Cleaner Prod.

Comput. Netw.

CIRP Ann.

Proc. CIRP

Proc. CIRP

CIRP Ann.

Manuf. Lett.

Proc. Manuf.

Comput. Ind.

Adv. Eng. Inf.

Adv. Eng. Inf.

Adv. Eng. Inf.

Proc. CIRP

Int. J. Prod. Econ.

Annals of the CIRP

Comput. Ind.

CIRP Ann.

Procedia Manuf.

Des. Stud.

State-of-the-art in product-service systems

Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng., Part B: J. Eng. Manuf.

The design of smart product-service systems (PSSs): an exploration of design characteristics

Int. J. Eng. Des.

A review of product-service systems design methodologies

J. Eng. Des.

A customization-oriented framework for design of sustainable product/service system

J. Cleaner Prod.

Service innovation in the digital age: Key contributions and future directions

MIS Quart.