Krestine Mougaard

Deciding on PSS: A Framework for PSS Strategies

Product/Service-Systems (PSS) are a strategic approach wherein the value proposition covers the performance of a system throughout the whole life cycle. Many industrial companies are challenged on many levels in the transition process towards a PSS oriented approach. Much of the literature has until now focused on PSS from a design object perspective, and less focus has been on how the business model of the company must be designed simultaneously with the offering, covering topics as organisational restructuring, value chain collaboration plus a change management focus. This paper presents a PSS strategy topic matrix, as a boundary object for the company, aimed at creating a shared understanding of important factors in the organisation while evaluating, developing, implementing and operating a PSS strategy. This is done through an empirical foundation of twelve companies representing a whole branch industry, together with three cases of industrial best-practice.

Collaborative Product/Service-Systems – On Conceptualisation of PSS Offerings and Business Nets

Collaborative PSS development and operation, where multiple stakeholders are involved, is an emerging research area. This articles looks at the intra and inter-organisational company considerations in the industry case of company collaboration in the maritime branch. Initial steps are taken towards a framework that aligns service strategies and their unique value proposition with a set of business nets that seeks lights on the value-logic and management mechanisms to design and control each network.

Makerspaces in Engineering Education: A Case Study

The recent years have witnessed a new generation of Makers working with new ways of knowledge generation for creation and sharing of digital and physical products. While this development has started within collaborative and grass roots organised networks; educational institutions have also embraced it by opening makerspaces and adopting elements of the Maker Movement in their offerings. This paper investigates how university driven makerspaces can affect engineering design and product development education trough a case study. We provide our findings based on interviews and data collected from educators, students the administrative and workshop staff of the makerspace. The findings are used to outline the challenges in incorporating the offerings of makerspaces. By discussing these challenges we identify opportunities for turning university makerspaces into innovation hubs and platforms that can support engineering design education. INTRODUCTION The recent years has witnessed the rise of the Maker Movement and Makerspaces, Hackerspaces and FabLabs. This new generation of Makers collaborate through loosely coupled networks and explore new ways of knowledge generation on creation and sharing of digital and physical products. The concept of makerspaces stems from grassroot movements; they are usually community-driven, and they provide facilities and means for (mostly digital) manufacturing to individuals. Recently, a new class of ‘institutionalised’ makerspaces have also been emerging, which are established by the industry, municipalities, and educational institutions to be a part of their innovation ecosystem. Makerspaces provide alternative learning environments, and support project and problem based learning. Especially, universities offering technical programs have embraced the idea of opening makerspaces in their own facilities, to support project based courses and student innovation activities. Furthermore, there are strong correlations between the core elements of engineering design education and the offerings of makerspaces, such as rapid prototyping tools, multi-disciplinary approaches to knowledge generation and creativity. A number of university makerspaces has opened in the past few years, with broad range of value propositions. While these places provide relevant offerings, and are being used -often indirectlyfor design education, their effect on both educators and students are unknown. In this regard, this paper aims to better understand: -Why have technical universities adapted the principle of FabLabs and Makerspaces as part of their educational offerings? -How does the adaption of FabLabs and Makerspaces affect engineering education?

Step-by-step towards PSS - Evaluating, Deciding and Executing

Successful implementation of product-service system (PSS) as business strategy has proven lucrative through many industry examples. However, companies should tread carefully before committing to a costly restructuring towards PSS business creation. This paper claims that before a company moves from being a product to a product-service provider they should carefully consider internal and external aspects with regard to their organization, their market and their network. The paper proposes a three step process labelled the Evaluate-Decide-Execute approach; an approach that should enable the company to first evaluate the foundation for PSS, and then decide whether to commit to this course, and finally execute the transformation.