A Product-Service System Configurator for Repurposing used Electric Vehicle Batteries

High initial costs are one of the major obstacles for the diffusion of electric vehicles (i.e., electric cars). The repurposing of used electric vehicle batteries (EVBs) is seen as a possibility to lower the total costs of ownership of the vehicles and therefore to foster electric car sales. However, the decision how to repurpose used EVBs requires severe information system (IS) support. In particular, in this article, the configuration task of providing used EVBs as product-service systems (PSSs), which would hardly be possible without IS support, is addressed. Configurators are a type of information systems that is suited to provide the required support. However, current instantiations of configurators for PSSs are scarce. An existing prototype is available but has certain limitations. Notably, it is only suitable for product-centric PSSs. Therefore, we set out to extend the configurator and present the design of a configurator that is capable of assisting the configuration of other types of PSSs (i.e., use-oriented and result-oriented). The configurator is instantiated and evaluated based on requirements derived from the literature and domain knowledge. While currently the configurator is specific for the domain of repurposing used EVBs it can be adapted to other domains.