A systematic apporach to service oriented product development

Throughout the last years, manufacturing industry has experienced a trend towards a higher level of operational integration with their customers, i.e. manufacturers differentiate their offer from competitors by combining physical and software products with service plans and service support operations. This integration of manufacturing and service business holds a number of potential advantages, such as optimised operational performance and improved insights into use phase processes. To realise these potential advantages, products and service operations must fit to and support each other, which calls for an integrated approach to their development. The integrated development of solution concepts spanning products, service delivery systems and matching delivery business models is the theme of this thesis. A design based approach - service oriented product development - is proposed for the creation of these Product/Service-Systems (PSS). The contribution builds on the foundations of engineering design and product development research performed at the Section of Engineering Design and Product Development at The Technical University of Denmark, also dubbed the Copenhagen school. Service oriented product development is based on the analysis of existing product life-, business- and use processes. This helps to identify the opportunities of creating improved solutions, through the combined delivery of products and services, potentially supported by altered customer relationship models. The research contribution is based on three industrial case studies, each emphasising several aspects of the case companies’ experiences and challenges in the transition from manufacturing- to service orientation. Two of the case companies are suppliers of equipment to the shipbuilding industry, the other is a global supplier of refrigeration technology. The main contributions documented in this thesis are the following: 1. A systematic approach allowing the visualisation of product life and related use activities is defined. 2. Service oriented product development must consider a broad range of actors not directly associated with use processes, but rather linked to the product life through associated processes and crossing life cycles. 3. Synthesis of PSS concepts relies on the iterative detailing and concretization of elements utilising three view domains, being artefact-, activity- and actor based. 4. The development of PSS concepts is a collaborative high level effort, spanning across all or many functional areas of the company. 5. The manufacturing company needs to create an organisation or team in every affected functional area in order to contribute to, receive and implement concepts from the collaborative service oriented product development activity. Resume Igennem den seneste tid har fremstillingsvirksomheder i stigende grad oplevet en trend mod en hojere grad af operationel integration med deres kunder og brugere. I praksis har virksomhederne i stigende grad differentieret sig fra konkurrenterne ved at kombinere deres udbud af soft- og hardwareprodukter med serviceaftaler og understottende tjenesteydelser. Denne sammenkobling af fremstillings- og serviceaktiviteter indeholder et antal potentieller fordele, som f.eks. hojere produktydelser og forbedret indsigt i produktets egenskaber i brugsfasen. For at realisere disse potentielle fordele, skal produkter og serviceaktiviteter vcre noje afstemt og understotte hinanden, hvilket gor en integreret tilgang til deres udvikling fordelagtig. Den integrerede udvikling af losningskoncepter, der spcnder over produkter, serviceleverancesystemer og tilpassede forretningsmodeller, er hovedemnet for denne afhandling. Disse produkt/ serivce-systemers udvikling soges understottet ved hjclp af en designbaseret tilgang – service orienteret produktudvikling – der prcsenteres i afhandlingen. Afhandlingen bygger pa forskningen i konstruktionsteknik og produktudvikling ved Sektionen for konstruktion og produktudvikling pa Danmarks Tekniske Universitet, en forskningstilgang, der til tider bliver betegnet som Kobenhavnerskolen. Service orienteret produktudvikling baseres pa en analyse af nuvcrende produktlivs-, forretnings- og brugsprocesser og bidrager til at identificere muligheder for at skabe forbedrede losninger ved en kombineret leverance af produkter og tjenesteydelser, evt. understottet af tilpassede forretningsmodeller overfor kunden. Forskningsbidraget er baseret pa analysen af tre case studier, der hver iscr fremhcver nogle aspekter af casevirksomhedernes erfaringer og udfordringer i forbindelse med den strategiske overgang fra produkt- til serviceorientering. To af virksomhederne er leverandorer til skibsbygningsindustrien, mens den tredje er en global leverandor af koleteknologi. Forskningsprojektets hovedbidrag er folgende: 1. En systematisk tilgang og visualisering af produktlivet og de relaterede brugsaktiviteter. 2. Service orienteret produktudvikling ma tilgodese en bred vifte af aktorer, der ikke er direkte involverede i brugsprocessen, men kun forbundet med produktlivet igennem associerede processer og krydsende livsforlob. 3. Syntesen af PSS koncepter kan baseres pa en iterativ detaljering og konkretisering af elementer ved udnyttelsen af tre modelleringsdomcner, nemlig artefakt-, aktivites- og aktordomcnerne. 4. Udviklingen af PSS koncepter er en samarbejdsopgave pa hojt abstraktionsniveau i virksomheden, der spcnder over de fleste funktionsomrader. 5. Virksomheden har brug for at oprette en modtagerorganisation I de enkelte funktionelle enheder, for at kunne omsctte de udviklingskoncepter, der skabes i den service orienterede produktudviklingsaktivitet.