Innovating Smart Product-Service Systems in Manufacturing SMEs: Current Practices, Affordances, and Constraints

Abstract

How do manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises perceive and realize the potential of emerging technologies for the innovation of smart product-service systems? We address this question by conducting nine expert interviews with representatives in the manufacturing sector. We apply qualitative content analysis to identify current practices, affordances, and constraints in the adoption of technologies to evolve offerings towards smart product-service systems.Building on this inductive empirical approach, we postulate three overarching affordances and four constraints that companies perceive in this process. We conclude by reflecting on applying affordances as our theoretical lens and postulate a multi-level approach to grasp and outline the multi-faceted implications of emerging digital technologies on organizations.

Requirements for a Smart Product-Service System Development Framework

“…Adding "smartness" to the concept of PSS changes and expands the possible services that can be provided as part of the PSS: As smart products generate data, they enable data-based services that were not feasible before. According to current literature, moving from PSS development toward smart PSS development is a major challenge for companies (Beverungen et al, 2017;Zheng et al, 2019;Heinz et al, 2022a). Currently, enterprises try to tackle the development of smart PSS on their own and are struggling because they often lack the resources and knowledge to manage the development of such systems (Schiller et al, 2022;Paliyenko et al, 2022).…”

“…System extensibility (R17): A smart PSS is composed of a tangible product and data-based, intangible services that jointly create value for the participants throughout the lifecycle of the solution (Song, 2017). The peculiar nature of smart technologies allows the technical and business ecosystems to grow and develop over time (Heinz et al, 2022b), making it crucial to consider all lifecycle phases during its development. The development framework must therefore foster development approaches that enable innovative transformation and extension beyond the product's point of sale, for example, by ensuring updateability as well as the compatibility of individual CPS components.…”

“…While companies often already follow defined and established development processes for designing traditional products, there is a lack of processes for systematically developing smart PSS. For this reason, many companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), still face major challenges in this regard when dealing with these more complex systems (Heinz et al, 2022a).…”

Cooperating and Competing Digital Twins for Industrie 4.0 in Urban Planning Contexts

“…Such networks result in networks of digital twins that are not just characterized by the technologies discussed in [18] but-at least equally important-by their roles and relationships in these networks, most prominently including cooperation and competition. Recent interviews with selected SMEs in the field of smart product-service manufacturing SMEs provide more in-depth, if anecdotal, evidence in this regard [20].…”

Barriers to Data Sharing among Private Sector Organizations

“…Despite its potential to create additional value by combining data from different sources, multiple barriers impede the sharing of data among organizations, which is why many firms are reluctant to share their data (Enders et al, 2021;Heinz et al, 2022b;Krämer et al, 2021). While extant literature has primarily focused on examining data sharing in scientific and governmental contexts for the last two decades (e.g., Otjacques et al, 2007;Priego & Wareham, 2020), research on data sharing among private sector organizations has gathered momentum only within the last few years (Richter & Slowinski, 2019).…”