Fabiana Pirola

Engineer-to-order (ETO) production planning and control: an empirical framework for machinery-building companies

This paper illustrates the results of an empirical study involving 21 engineer-to-order (ETO) companies, operating in the machinery-building industry. The study investigates the needs and requirements of such companies in terms of software support for governing the businesses, with particular emphasis on production planning and control (PPC) processes. An empirical analysis investigated two main aspects: (i) the set of business activities performed by the companies in the analysed industry and (ii) the relevant, high-level software functionalities required for the execution of such activities. As an answer to the observed compelling need for reviewing the general approaches to PPC in machinery-building companies, we develop an empirical, high-level production planning and scheduling reference framework, encompassing all the activities involved in the order fulfilment process.

Understanding Customer Needs to Engineer Product-Service Systems

Starting from the 90s, an increasing number of companies have been starting to move from a product-centric perspective towards Product-Service-System (PSS). In this context, suitable models, methods and tools to collect, engineer and embed in a single solution all the knowledge that meets or exceeds people’s emotional needs and expectations are required. Despite that, only few authors have proposed methodologies that can be easily adopted by industrial companies to design and engineer a product-service solution starting from the customer needs. Thus, this paper focuses on the customer needs analysis and aims at proposing a methodology to support companies in identifying customer needs, representing the starting point to the engineering and/or reengineering of PSS offering and the related delivery processes. An industrial case study in ABB S.p.A. has been carried out in order to test the methodology.

A Service Engineering framework to design and configure Product-Service Systems

Companies are striving to create new sources of value, providing integrated product-service solutions to customers, evolving from a “pure product” orientation towards a Product-Service System (PSS) perspective. In this context, Service Engineering (SE), the discipline concerned with the systematic development and design of product-services, is becoming a predominant field. Most of the available Service Engineering models, methods and tools come from traditional engineering, business and computer science approaches adapted to the Service System or Product-Service System. In order to fill this gap, this paper proposes a Service Engineering framework that integrates a product-service design modelling tool developed at the Tokyo Metropolitan University with a discrete event simulation test-bench, which enables the comparison of several PSS configurations and the evaluation of both customer and internal performance. A sample case is reported to better clarify the different phases of the framework implementation.

Service engineering framework: The adoption of simulation to design and configure Product-Service solutions

In the last years, a number of companies have undertaken a shift to a service paradigm. Apart from the benefits obtained by the so called “servitization”, many companies have also suffered the lack of methodological and systematic tools to deal with the enlargement of their Product-Service Systems (PSS) offering. The few tools nowadays available in the Service Engineering (SE) context have a reduced industrial applicability, and are mainly focused on the satisfaction of customer needs. Starting from this limitation, Pezzotta et al. (2014) defined the SErvice Engineering Methodology (SEEM) that aims at supporting companies during the engineering of a new PSS balancing the value perceived by the customer and the company sustainability. In particular, this paper aims at investigating and defining how it is possible to properly adopt Discrete Event Simulation (DES) in SEEM for the purpose of assessing the performance of a new or revised PSS offering. Two possibilities have been identified and compared through an industrial case study, and a comparison to select the best one has been conducted. The identified paradigm has been then used in a real context with the aim to better understand the main industrial implications.

Standardizing delivery processes to support service transformation: A case of a multinational manufacturing firm

Abstract While enlarging their value proposition adding services to their product portfolio, an increasing number of manufacturing companies is suffering a lack of methods to engineer and manage the service offer effectively and efficiently. In particular, multinational companies are struggling with the complexity of organizing the service delivery process of a composite portfolio throughout their branches spread in different geographical locations and characterized by different maturity levels. This paper specifically focuses on this dilemma proposing an approach for service delivery process standardization as a mean to make the service activities uniform and similar in different units. The intent is not to create organizations all working in the same way but instead to re-use best practices and share business optimization. To achieve the research objective, a structured approach that guides the identification of a standard process and a service based reference model internal to the company are proposed. They would pursue the identification of a common taxonomy inside the company and the contextualization of the standard process into the company structure. Through a step-by-step procedure to apply the technique, an industrial application was carried out showing the practical and managerial implication coming from the adoption of the standardization approach inside the company. The outcome of the case constitutes a first step toward the development of a standard reference model for service delivery process to be adopted in multiple industries and contexts.

Evaluation and assessment of two simulation software for Service Engineering

The service industry is recognized as a central element of modern economies. Services represent an important topic both for practitioners and researchers: although they may contribute substantially to a company’s bottom line, they still lack a methodological support and a systematic study for the design phase. To make service provision profitable in the long term, it is of utmost relevance to balance the excellence in the value channel to the customer with a high efficiency and productivity of the service processes. In this respect, simulation can support companies during their service engineering process by providing a support in the identification of the best scenario, as well as a qualitative and quantitative assessment of the company’s decisions. Nonetheless, no specific service-oriented simulation software is available on the market. Therefore, this chapter aims at comparing two simulation software solutions originally oriented to the manufacturing area. Through a real-case example, we discuss a comparative analysis between two widespread commercial simulation software, evaluating which one is the most suitable to be used in the service contexts.

One-of-a-Kind Production (OKP) Planning and Control: An Empirical Framework for the Special Purpose Machines Industry

In this paper, we focus on the One-of-a-Kind Production (OKP) industry, where each product is designed and manufactured based on specific customer requirements to a large extent, according to an Engineer To Order (ETO) approach. This research has been carried out among the “SIGI-X” project, funded by the Italian Ministry of Economic Development (MISE). The paper illustrates an empirical study on the state-of-the-art of information systems supporting the leading processes in OKP companies. Through a set of 21 case studies in Italian companies producing special machines, we aim to: identify and investigate strengths and weaknesses of the main OKP business processes; analyze the ICT support and its level of integration among the different ICT solutions; identify levers for improvement, concerning organizational, methodological and informatics aspects; build a practical framework that could define and link the main processes in order to obtain a sort of guideline useful for re-engineering the processes, and laying the foundation for a new integrated ICT business template for OKP companies. The lack of support of three fundamental tasks such as project management, planning and cost control underlines that there is substantial room for improvement under the ICT support perspective. Finally, the development of an integrated IT environment to support (in particular) project management and planning activities, specifically addressed to OKP context, would help these companies to improve their performance and competitiveness.

Defining a PSS Lifecycle Management System: Main Characteristics and Architectural Impacts

The global crisis and the fierce competition of emerging countries make companies struggling to stay ahead of competition. The number of companies that are enlarging their offer portfolio looking forward to new and increased sources of revenues is always increasing but the number of companies failing in successfully implementing servitization strategy is even more. One possible reason behind this is the lack of tools to support companies while dealing with services that by definition are characterized by high level of intangibility and perishability. In this context, the integration of product design in concurrent with the related service design is becoming very relevant in several industrial fields.

Engineering Product-Service Solutions: An Application in the Power and Automation Industry

Manufacturing companies are heavily competing for the identification of new sources of value for the market, moving from a traditional transaction-based and product-centric orientation towards the provision of integrated solutions to their customers. In this context, Service Engineering, the discipline concerned with the systematic development and design of service and product-services, is gaining particular relevance for mastering the service lifecycle management of a product-service solution. This paper provides a contribution in this field with the description of a Service Engineering Framework platform to support the reengineering of the service offering in a multinational company operating in the power and automation industry, with the aim to provide a customized solution able to fulfill the specific customer requirements and at the same time to gain a better efficiency in the delivery of the service processes.

An Empirical Investigation on the Use of Buffers and Incentives in Non-Hierarchical Networks

Delivery reliability has shifted from being an order winner to being an order qualifier in many industrial and service sectors. Thus, companies are forced to take into consideration all the aspects that might impact on such an indicator. This paper focuses on the European machinery and equipment industry, an important instance of the non-hierarchical network concept, to investigate the relationships existing among supply-side uncertainty, delivery reliability to the final market and the adoption of possible leverages to mitigate problems, namely buffers and incentives. The authors formulate the research hypotheses and test them against a set of collected data in 3 European countries. The final discussion about the results provides insights about the real effectiveness of buffer and incentive based approaches, as well as some directions for future research.