Collaborative product-service systems engineering: Towards an active role of customers and stakeholders in value co-creation

Abstract

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of how customers and other stakeholders can be involved in value co-creation activities in a collaborative Product-Service System (PSS) design and engineering process, and which of the existing engagement methods in the body of knowledge can be adopted in order to achieve their active participation in value co-creation. Furthermore, the paper aims to contribute to the evolution of PSS design and engineering approaches from customer-centric ones to a stakeholder centric co-creation perspective.

Strategic planning of continuous stakeholder involvement in the design of industrial product‐service systems

“…Only if they are explicitly known, the customer integration can be focused [29]. Further goals and risks of customer integration can be taken from [10, 18, 19].…”

“…A collection of additional methods for customer integration can be found in [10]. Including the examples above, a total of 35 methods to support customer integration in the design process have been found so far.…”

“…As IPS 2 providers assume operational responsibilities, they should analyse the dynamic environment of the IPS 2 throughout its lifecycle and consider it a key resource [33]. The cooperation of all stakeholders involved in the IPS 2 value chain and the shared value creation play a central role [10]. Crucial to stakeholder integration are the systematic identification of the stakeholder groups and the provision of IPS 2 designers with methodologies and tools to visualise the stakeholder network and its needs [21, 34].…”

“…The design of IPS 2 constitutes specific challenges to companies, since tangible products, services, infrastructure and stakeholders must be integrated into a holistic system [1, 4]. One of those challenges is the detailed understanding of the stakeholders, their needs and constraints as well as their involvement in the IPS 2 design process [8, 9, 10].…”

“…There are approaches to be found in literature concerning methods for customer involvement in design projects [11–15], specific goals and risks [16–19] or aspects of stakeholder integration [10, 20–25]. What is missing is a holistic approach that merges the proposals to completely capture all relevant constitutive criteria.…”