Towards a Methodology for Selecting Product Usage Information Sources for the (Re-)Design of Product Service Systems

Abstract

A product’s value is increasingly determined by the services supporting it. Complex Product-Service Systems (PSS) – combinations of services and products – are in demand. Product usage information (PUI), that is, information about how an individual product is used, is rapidly becoming a valuable asset to industry to help inform service offers throughout the product lifecycle. Conventionally, information about how a product is used is gathered in customer relations and MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) processes via channels such as repair logs, call centres or helpdesks. Today, new channels of PUI are emerging from the digitalization of products, the Internet of Things, Cyber-Physical Systems, Internet PUI sources and social media. However, there is a lack of a methodological approach which companies use to select the right PUI source for the design of services, and vice-versa, to understand which value-added services can be offered using information already generated by sensors embedded into their products or available on the Internet or in social media. This contribution is intended to show an avenue of research towards such a methodology.