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Apparent from the latest pandemic, the dynamics and rate of change in society accelerate on a global scale. Ongoing mega-trends in society, such as digitalization, sustainability, and servitization, fundamentally changes the conditions for manufacturers when developing and providing new products. This study clarifies the combined impact and consequences on product development capabilities in manufacturing firms of the three mega-trends: (i) digitalization, (ii) sustainability, and (iii) servitization. The research is based on a pre-study, complemented with a semi-structured interview study at small, medium-sized, and large Swedish-based manufacturing companies, and a systematic literature review. The research makes evident that the main challenge is to empower engineers and development teams to model, present, evaluate, and develop expected and smart digitalized solutions in a time-limited environment and prioritize the most resource efficient and sustainable solution. Therefore, four complementary support resources are suggested: (i) a knowledge management platform, (ii) a data management platform, (iii) a set of criteria and metrics measuring progression, and (iv) support methods and tools to define, model, and evaluate solutions. When integrated into a digital platform, developers can simultaneously access and process the necessary information needed for sustainable, digitalized, and servitized solutions.

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The objective of this article is to uncover benefits and risks of Integrated Product Service Offering (IPSO) in a systematic manner. To do so, it adopts an explorative longitudinal in-depth case study (development of an IPSO based on a new technology) and adds insights to the existing literature. The article first proposes a theoretical and generic framework termed the PCP (Provider -CustomerProduct) triangle with associated information flow and uncertainty. Second, various types of benefits and risks are presented based on the framework. Among others, the benefit of keeping IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) with the provider and the risk of regulation change are new findings from the case study. In addition, the case study reveals that IPSO is regarded as a positive contributor to innovation. Applying the framework and classification of benefits and risks as norms to other cases has yet to be done for verification. However, the framework contributes scientifically to a better understanding of the benefits and risks of IPSO. In addition, this framework is advantageous with its easiness to understand, which contributes practically to the dissemination of IPSO insight to industry.

This paper presents a method for simulating the impact of improvements to the engineering design process. The method can be used by managers and teams to prioritize the most valuable process improvements among several suggested ones, before they actually take place. The method is based on the design structure matrix (DSM) developed by Steward (1981), and an extension of DSM called the work transformation model developed by Smith and Eppinger (1997). We introduce two new concepts, total process time and simulated to-be/as-is ratio. Two applications are presented. The rst, a gas turbine blade development process, illustrates the estimated gain of a process improvement, and evaluates the actual implementation. The second application, a buyer-supplier product development project, shows how the method could be used as a decision support tool in an inter-organizational context. Input to the process simulation comes from process descriptions and estimates of anticipated effects of process change at the activity level. Output shows the effect of such a change on a total process level.