Product Service System Design and Implementation in a Customer Centric World: An Approach to a User Oriented PSS Framework

Abstract

By offering of Product Service Systems (PSS) traditional product-oriented companies get an excellent opportunity to create new value by delivering customers a unique utility. This comes along with the improvement of the companies’ competitive position on both, the domestic and the international marketplaces. A PSS is a combination of tangible or intangible products and services. Current available PSS approaches in literature as a set of guided methodologies how to implement a PSS out of a traditional product are manly focussed on the needs of large companies. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) habitually tend to block such approaches due to much complexity of the frameworks and missing usability and adaptability. However, PSS can also provide many opportunities for SMEs to generate new and innovative business models. In addition, the concept of customer centricity is currently not present at SMEs as well as the PSS research. To attract interest of SMEs in PSS a framework that is suitable to fit their needs is required. Hence, a first step is presented in this paper as the interaction based approach will help to make complex PSS frameworks applicable for SMEs.