Improving User Experience and Communication of Digitally Enhanced Advanced Services (DEAS) Offers in Manufacturing Sector

Abstract

Digitally enhanced advanced services (DEAS), offered currently by various industries, could be a challenging concept to comprehend for potential clients. This could result in limited interest in adopting (DEAS) or even understanding its true value with significant financial implications for the providers. Innovative ways to present and simplify complex information are provided by serious games and gamification, which simplify and engage users with intricate information in an enjoyable manner. Despite the use of serious games and gamification in other areas, only a few examples have been documented to convey servitization offers. This research explores the design and development of a serious game for the Howden Group, a real-world industry partner aiming to simplify and convey existing service agreement packages. The system was developed under the consultation of a focus group comprising five members of the industrial partner. The final system was evaluated by 30 participants from engineering and servitization disciplines who volunteered to test online the proposed system and discuss their user experience (UX) and future application requirements. The analysis of users’ feedback presented encouraging results, with 90% confirming that they understood the DEAS concept and offers. To conclude, the paper presents a tentative plan for future work which will address the issues highlighted by users’ feedback and enhance the positive aspects of similar applications.

Metaverse in the Virtual Workplace

“…At the same time, it is not yet clear how the elements of industry 4.0. should be integrated into the metaverse in the workplace. Another example of using a metaverse in the industry is the design and development of a serious game for a real industry partner that aims to simplify and provide complex information (Khan et al, 2022; Siyaev & Jo, 2021). As the position of the cluster in Figure 3 suggests, this is a motor theme, which has been the focus of several researchers.…”

“…Another example is developing a serious game for a real industry partner that aims to simplify and provide complex information (Khan et al, 2022). Purdy (2022) stated that the metaverse can revolutionize workplace training and skill acquisition through gamification in the metaverse.…”

Servitization Through VR Serious Games: From Manufacturing to Consumer Electronics

“…The delivery of the aforementioned automotive servitization offers bears similarities to other servitization strategies, particularly in the fintech domain. Previous work on the latter presented significant difficulties in the explanation of such offers to the potential customers [3]. This was a result of the offers' complexity and bespoke structure which overcomplicated the potential choices.…”

“…Previous work has presented the use of emerging technologies such as Virtual/ Augmented Reality (VR/AR), 3D, simulations and gamification that could better portray these complex offers. To this end, the use of serious games could entice potential customers to explore in a simple yet enjoyable manner the benefits of servitization offers [3].…”

“…This is becoming a major factor in electric vehicles (EVs) that primarily portray the provision of advanced technologies and comforts for the vehicle occupants [7,8]. This paper will initially discuss the current manufacturing servitization process and the use of gamification to present the DEAS offers to the customer based on a real-life example from heavy industry [3][4][5]. In turn, it will present a prototype AR Head-Up Display (HUD) system that utilises gesture recognition for the interaction with the AR icons to control the vehicle's infotainment system safely [9][10][11].…”