Robust Capacity Planning for the Delivery of Industrial Product-service Systems

Abstract Industrial Product-Service Systems (IPS 2 ) are integrated product and service offerings that deliver superior customer value in industrial applications by mutually determined planning, development, delivery and use of product and service shares. A particular challenge for the provision of IPS 2 is the planning of resources, e.g. field service engineers (FSE). As a consequence, organizations which offer IPS 2 or industrial services experience a lack of decision support in determining robust capacity planning strategies in highly dynamic and uncertain environments. In this paper, a simulation-based capacity planning approach is introduced. The focus is on capacity planning of FSE for IPS 2 delivery in IPS 2 or service networks. After some general considerations on robust capacity planning for IPS 2 delivery with the help of scenario simulations, the core elements of the agent-based simulation approach are presented. The most important parameters, control variables and performance indicators are discussed and the procedure of simulation-based scenario planning is outlined.