Ola Isaksson

Towards a Framework for developing Product/Service Systems

Increasingly, manufacturers become service providers rather than product providers. In this work, a framework based on industrial studies is suggested for developing product service system. The framework is represented by six life cycle phases where three actor categories views are represented. The framework is described using examples from different industries/businesses. The intention is that the framework can be used for both B2C and B2B type of relations. One significant characteristic is that the “traditional” sales phase is replaced by a sales occasion that occur within different life cycle phases depending on which business context/model is used.

Criteria for assessing the Value of Product Service System Design Alternatives: an Aerospace Investigation

Growing from data collected within a major EU research project in the aerospace domain, the paper proposes a candidate approach to assess the value of Product Service System design alternatives in a preliminary design phase. A framework composed of six main families of value criteria is proposed to support the product/service development team in evaluating the responsiveness and trade-off between alternative designs that target lifecycle commitment, with respect to the impact on perceived values and stated needs and expectations. A visualization approach is also proposed to quickly communicate the value contribution of the design alternatives at the decision gate.

Knowledge-Sharing Network for Product-Service System Development: Is it atypical?

The move towards offering Product-Service Systems (PSS) requires the involvement of stakeholders from different companies, possessing knowledge about the different product lifecycle phases. This setting poses unique challenges for traditional product manufacturers, which need to rearrange transaction-based relationships into long-term relationships of co-development. Knowledge sharing across organizational boundaries is, therefore, considered as a key enabler for the development of profitable PSS. The paper is based on a social network tie perspective, and its purpose is to describe and exemplify knowledge-sharing network for PSS development—in order to describe the impact of the shift toward PSS development on companies’ relationships and responsibilities. Based on the findings from two research projects involving various partners from the aerospace industry, the paper concludes that the development of profitable PSS relies on the development of strong and weak ties across the supply network. Finally, a five stages model of the evolution of tie strength is proposed for classifying relationships within the PSS knowledge-sharing network.

The rise of social product development

The aim of the paper is to discuss the rising potential of social software to increase the knowledge management capabilities of virtual product development teams. It presents six fundamental transitions, elaborated from the empirical findings, which justify the rise of a more bottom-up, social creation and sharing of engineering knowledge in the virtual organisation. The study suggests that traditional engineering knowledge management approaches alone are not sufficient to support development activities in the virtual organisation, and that such teams display an increasing demand for social, comparatively lightweight and remixable platforms for bottom-up, social creation and sharing of knowledge.

Communicating the Value of PSS Design Alternatives using Color-Coded CAD Models

The paper proposes an approach to increase the decision makers’ awareness at the gate, when evaluating PSS design alternatives from a lifecycle and value oriented perspective. The paper illustrates a lightweight value visualization tool, running on top of existing CAD systems, supporting value visualization of a given part or assembly, thanks to color coding. Information from value assessment is in this way translated into visual features of the CAD 3D model. Despite the approach is still on a start-up phase, an early mock-up of the tool has been developed and applied to a real aircraft engine component, in order to verify the feasibility of the approach.

Enabling Variation of Manufacturing Process Parameters in Early Stages of Product Development

Currently, mechanical design of aero engine structural components is defined by dimensioning of Design Parameters (DPs) to meet Functional Requirements (FRs). FRs are typically loads, geometrical interfaces and other boundary conditions. Parameters from downstream processes are seldom actually seen as DPs. This paper proposes that downstream process parameters are treated as DPs which calls for engineering methods that can define and evaluate these extended set of DPs. Using the proposed approach manufacturing process alternatives can be used as DPs in early stages of product development. Both the capability to quantitatively assess impact of varying manufacturing DPs, and the availability of these design methods are needed to succeed as an early phase design method. One bottleneck is the preparation time to define and generate these advanced simulation models. This paper presents how these manufacturing process simulations can be made available by automating the weld simulation preparation stages of the engineering work. The approach is based on a modular approach where the methods are defined with knowledge based engineering techniques-operating close to the CAD system. Each method can be reused and used independently of each other and adopted to new geometries. A key advantage is the extended applicability to new products, which comes with a new set of DPs. On a local level the lead time to generate such manufacturing simulation models is reduced with more than 99% allowing manufacturing process alternatives to be used as DPs in early stages of product development.Copyright

Measuring innovation capability - Assessing collaborative performance in product-service system innovation

This paper reports on a qualitative study, carried out at a Swedish aero engine manufacturer. The study was initiated to explore key indicators related to innovation capability in a Product-Service System (PSS) context. Developing PSS changes the dynamics of collaboration, since the offering of such systems usually involves a network of partners sharing the responsibility for a delivered function over a full lifecycle. In particular, this paper focuses on describing aspects related to external and internal collaboration, and it further discusses how to measure the company’s collaborative performance, taking into account both activity and effect measures.

Jet Engine Design Optimization Using a Knowledge-Based Master Model

This paper presents a preliminary design optimization study of a jet engine structure using a knowledge-based master modeling approach. The objective function is derived based on input-output relationships of a cost-performance model, where specific fuel consumption, pressure loss and direct cost are considered. The advantage of this problem formulation is that it entails a single composite objective function that takes into account mass, structural characteristics, dynamic response and translates them to a direct operational cost function to be minimized. A fan-blade-off scenario is considered as the loading case in this paper. The loss of one fan blade during nominal operation causes a rotor imbalance and structural deformation.Copyright

Assessing the Value of Sub-System Technologies including Life Cycle Alternatives

Emerging from an industrial case study in the aerospace industry, the paper proposes an approach to evaluate subsystem technology concepts from a life cycle perspective. The approach is composed by 5 main phases that aims to drive product designers towards more value-oriented design decisions. It is shown how different life cycle alternatives, such as the selling of a Product-Service-System instead of a traditional product, deeply impact the value of design alternatives. The described approach has been developed in collaboration with industrial partners and represents a potential instrument to enhance value-driven product design.

Simulation Driven Design for Product-Service Systems

Total Offers, Functional Products, and Integrated Product Service Engineering reflect a shift toward service offers from manufacturing industry captured within the term Product-Service Systems (PSS). Manufacturing companies have traditionally focused design and development activities on realizing technical and engineered aspects of physical artifacts, while PSS include deeper understanding of customers’ expectation, needs and perceived value, hence calling for modelling of additional aspects. The change in early design processes and the effects on virtual modelling of product properties are discussed in this paper through aerospace industry examples to clarify ‘parameters of change’, giving suggestions for a simulation driven design (SDD) approach.