Multi-Criteria Decision Making for Sustainability and Value Assessment in Early PSS Design

Abstract

Sustainability is increasingly recognized as a key innovation capability in the organization. However, it is not always evident for manufacturers how sustainability targets shall be “mixed and matched” with more traditional objectives—such as quality, time, cost, and performances—when designing and developing solutions. The emergence of “servitization” and product-service systems (PSS) further emphasizes the need for making thoughtful trade-offs between technical aspects, business strategies, and environmental benefits of a design. The objective of this paper is to investigate how multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) models shall be applied to down-select PSS concepts from a value perspective, by considering sustainability as one of the attributes of a design contributing to the overall value of a solution. Emerging from the findings of a multiple case study in the aerospace and construction sector, the paper presents a five-step iterative process to support decision making for sustainable PSS design, which was further applied to design an electrical load carrier. The findings show that the proposed approach creates a “hub” where argumentations related to “value” and “sustainability” of PSS solution concepts can be systematically captured in a way that supports the discussion on the appropriate quantification strategy.

The Need for New Product Development Capabilities from Digitalization, Sustainability, and Servitization Trends

“…Kwok et al [69] include socio-ecological sustainability indicators covering a product life-cycle, which are derived systematically from a product sustainability design space [70]. This approach has its strength in that it is based on a backcasting approach from scientific scrutinized overarching sustainability principles [27], in comparison to other models that have criteria identified from a forecasting and ad hoc approach, e.g., suggested in Bertoni [71].…”

“…At the same time, the industry sees a need for the authorities to express clearly what is required. In a recent study [71], an expert group from the manufacturing industry suggested that business models are established on a national level to accelerate adaption and implementation of more sustainable products and services. In this way, social institutions and industry can meet the future goals together.…”

An Extended GRA Method Integrated with Fuzzy AHP to Construct a Multidimensional Index for Ranking Overall Energy Sustainability Performances

“…To construct an index, the underlying model should be clearly defined so that the formulation strategy for normalization, weighting, and aggregation techniques can be determined [10]. In this regard, multicriteria decision-making (MCDM) methods provide promising opportunities to deal with the multidimensional and complex nature of sustainability [20]. MCDM refers to a set of methods to be used for supporting decision-making in a multicriteria environment by analyzing a series of possible alternatives [21,22].…”

A BIM-based PSS Approach for the Management of Maintenance Operations of Building Equipment

“…In the literature, numerous studies have investigated the application of PSSs in different industrial contexts [30,31], providing PSS models and tools to support manufacturers in the implementation of integrated solutions [32,33]. In particular, a large number of studies have focused on the Use-Oriented PSSs (i.e., when the company provides the product's functions rather than the ownership of the product), since the manufacturer's interventions to optimize the use phase of the product can be very beneficial not only for the PSS stakeholders but also in terms of environmental performances [34,35].…”

“…Accordingly, the use of supporting methods has not been discussed in detail. In fact, a further investigation on the application of tools for facilitating both the analysis of PSS components (e.g., The Quality Function Deployment for PSS and the Axiomatic Design methods [33,94]), as well as the interoperability between the various actors (e.g., CMMS [95] and COBIE [96,97] tools) is necessary.…”