The front-end of product service system design, a case analysis

Ivo Dewita* and Dries De Roecka

aDepartment of Product Development, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium *Corresponding Author: ivo.dewit@uantwerpen.be

ABSTRACT

In recent years product-service systems (PSS) receive substantially more attention in innovation literature. Manufacturers increasingly seek new value in service addition and service providers explore the integration of tangible elements in their offering. Current advancements in electronics, information and communication technology (ICT) have made it possible to combine products and services in an innovative way. However, the integral character of these hybrids can make the design process rather complex, merging a diversity of disciplines and their underlying processes such as; electronics design, software design, service design and product design. The paper brings forward seventeen visualized PSS concepts, interaction with product and service elements in their context and intended experience. The concepts serve as input to distill several PSS strategies and underlying characteristics. The results enable us to propose a PSS continuum to elaborate and further refine existing PSS typologies, applied in the front-end of innovation. Keyword: front-end of innovation, product service systems, typology, value creation, interaction, user experience

1. Introduction 1.1 Scientific and social relevance Technological progression and more demanding consumer markets force companies to reinvent themselves in an ever-increasing pace and create value in unprecedented ways. In this development interaction and user experience emerge, often intertwining product and service. Functional products and unburdening services no longer suffice when shifting the value carrier towards the system, rather than a focus on product or service. However, reality shows that companies - rather traditionally - add services as a by-product or use products as a means to provide a service (Tischner and Vezzoli, 2013). Companies typically have the knowledge and optimal organization for new product development (NPD) but show a lack for new service development (NSD). PSS can provide an opportunity to create innovative interactions between consumers, the products and services they use and the providers that offer these hybrids. Yet, it requires a different design approach that copes with an increased complexity of disciplines and their underlying processes in order to explore the opportunities

provided by emerging PSS concepts and enhance value creation. 1.2 Developments in characteristics, strategies and typologies for PSS When thinking of PSS design strategies, we recurrently fall back on Tukker and Tischner’s (2004) typology on PSS. It describes competitiveness from a sustainable view, categorizing lowering potential environmental impact compared to a product-based business model. The typology states nothing about the user and works unidirectional, by which we mean for a product-service transition, it does not work for service providers that explore the integration of tangible elements. Authors such as McAloone (2004), Tan (2006), Stickdorn (2011) and Valencia (2013) provide characteristics and strategies to design for PSS that integrate notions of the user and enable us to think differently and possibly reinterpret a more suitable typology. Previous research (Dewit, 2014) on PSS design capacity identifies the importance of integrating a user perspective and complementing the current typology of PSS with the addition of a service-product transition. Adding to Chan (2003), not the distinction in terms of product-service or service-product is of importance; rather the emphasis of the first part relative to the second and its relation to the use-context.

2. Methodological approach of the PSS project 2.1 Design educational setting in close collaboration with industry The paper describes an ‘integrated product design’ (IPD) project, used as a case to explore and analyze conceptualization of PSS. The project represents a workload of 14 ECTS (European credits), is compulsory for first year master students and focusses on the development of competences of service integration for product designers. Fifty-two product design students participated in a ten week project and were divided in seventeen groups of three students each. Each group was challenged to define innovative concepts to enrich the interaction in predefined important ‘nodes of life’, landmarks of human life inspired by van Gennep (1960), Elton and Reid (2010) and Vissers (2012); e.g. childbirth, first job, buying a house, marriage, retirement, death. The students received educational guidance and design input from an interdisciplinary team of five design professionals and academics; two assistant teachers in product development, two doctoral researchers and an external service designer that facilitated in the necessary knowledge, the tools and their implementation. A recently developed service design toolkit (Design Flanders and Namahn, 2013) was modified with a specific focus on PSS. This enabled the students to establish a multi-faceted interaction and experience of users with products, services and their systems in whole life cycles (Dewit, 2014 and De Roeck, 2013) in the specific context of their ‘node of life’.

2.2 A pathway for product service systems In Figure 1 we illustrate how companies usually start designing PSS in a sequential manner, and frequently this ‘addition’ comes in later stages of the design process. However more opportunities lie in a nested or even better a parallel approach, both can be described as pathways that consider integrating product and service in the early stages of the design process. Likewise it’s important to acknowledge how product and service work together instead of designing separate elements. Nested suggests that the product has to be designed to meet the service aspects and vice versa. Parallel goes even further and integrates the consideration of constant front-end interdependencies and strategic linkages between product and service (Dewit, 2014). In the discussed project, we use a parallel approach as a starting point.

Figure 1 Product Service System Pathways

2.3 A document analysis as qualitative research method Seventeen PSS design concept serve as unit of analysis to explore product/service interaction and user experience. In the breakdown of the concepts we step back from a user performing a specific action and take a broader perspective on the context in which that person lives. This is a different starting point than a market pull situation, where you get close to users and understand what they currently need. Likewise, opposing a pure technology push, we think functional innovation is useless if not supported by a reinterpretation of meaning. Therefor the described project is more design-driven, where the focus is on one benefit, peculiar to a radical innovation of meaning, rather than focusing on performance or problem-solving (Verganti, 2009).

3. Results 3.1 A description of the PSS continuum We propose an approach for PSS, based on within system product/service component distribution, potentially adding to existing typologies, strategies and characteristics.

Figure 2 : Interaction/effect model for PSS

In this high level model (Figure 2), we start from a user’s interaction with a system. This system can consist of product (tangible artefacts, visible things in the world) and service (intangible, digital) components. Both of these components will have their influence on the overall experience. Depending on whether the focus of the product service system is either on the product or the service side, the type of experience created can be influenced. In order to understand the effects of product and service components better, Table 1 below illustrates the effect of each component using PSS available on the market and brings forward a breakdown of three exemplary cases: - Component distribution: a PSS can be more product focused or more service

focused. Depending on the distribution, other characteristics can be catalyzed. - Consequence: when the focus of a PSS is either on product or service, the

consequence of this focus can be identified on a high level. - Experiential characteristics: different consequences influence the overall type of

experience that results from either a product or service focus. When designing a PSS, the focus can be either on product or service level, there is no judgment to be made in which one is better than the other. Component

distribution

Consequence Experiential

characteristics

Example

Product focused A tangible artifact has an

important role in the PSS.

Without a dedicated product

the PSS cannot exist.

The product carries specific

aesthetic qualities and allows

embedding emotion, personal

meaning in the product.

Goodnightlamp.com: an

internet-connected lamp. The

aesthetic of the lamp is crucial

during usage.

Service focused The interaction with the PSS

is not linked to a specific

tangible product.

The PSS offers a specific

functionality with a generic

meaning. The user needs to

assign meaning.

Jawbone.com: an activity tracker

gives visual overview of a person’s

movement. Goals can be set, but the

user has to emotionally attach to it.

Balanced Both product and service are

evenly important. This

implies that when one of both

would be removed, the PSS

makes no sense anymore.

A user can decide whether

s/he wants to relate more to

the product or the service

side.

Estimote.com: beacons send

messages to passersby in a retail

environment. A distinctive shaped

product but without the service

component no interaction possible.

Table 1 : PSS continuum breakdown

3.2 Mapping of the PSS concepts In Table 2 we describe seventeen PSS concepts by their context, offering, interaction, intended user experience and component distribution in the PSS continuum.

Table 2 : PSS concepts mapping

4. Discussion and future research

Current approaches on PSS design tend to focus only on the user and or sustainability. We propose business context sensitive strategies in a PSS model and continuum to incorporate the interaction with the product and/or service and its effect on the user’s experience, central throughout the design process. Deeper project screening is necessary to explore how aspirational design drivers provide requirements for interaction, product/service and the translation into product/service attributes that contribute to the user experience and its added value. Additional research aims to repeat the experiment in educational and organizational context to provide further insight in empirical cases and to validate the work so far.

5. Conclusion An analysis of PSS concepts following a parallel approach (Figure 1) points out potential new strategies or characteristics (Table 1) and provides new opportunities not apparent within traditional typologies. The results enable us to refine existing PSS typologies applied in front-end methodology and improve support for future designers in; product-service integration, value creation and PSS typology representation.

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