Rajkumar Roy

State-of-the-art in product service-systems

Abstract A Product-Service System (PSS) is an integrated combination of products and services. This Western concept embraces a service-led competitive strategy, environmental sustainability, and the basis to differentiate from competitors who simply offer lower priced products. This paper aims to report the state-of-the-art of PSS research by presenting a clinical review of literature currently available on this topic. The literature is classified and the major outcomes of each study are addressed and analysed. On this basis, this paper defines the PSS concept, reports on its origin and features, gives examples of applications along with potential benefits and barriers to adoption, summarizes available tools and methodologies, and identifies future research challenges.

A review of product-service systems design methodologies

Product–service systems (PSS), motivated to fulfil customers’ needs, are seen as good strategies to face todays competitive business environment. The field of PSS research is however not fully mature and many different methodologies are proposed for the PSS design. This paper seeks to understand the directions taken in eight state-of-the-art methodologies so as to identify common needs in future research. The methodologies are studied across their authors’ views and definitions of services, PSS and their objectives and challenges, along with the tools that have been developed. A maturity model is built to access the current PSS design across 20 dimensions. The model highlights that only three dimensions are strongly treated: design processes for integrating products and services, definitions of new terminologies and considerations concerning planning and designing life-cycle phases. To enhance the industrial application, collaboration between researchers and practitioners can be spurred through two challenges: common ontology and models for representation of PSS. Particular attention must also be placed on sustainability as current models do not support the generation of sustainable PSS. As a whole, the review shows that the PSS design is still in initial stages of development and substantial research is required to develop a practical PSS design methodology.

Computer assisted customer churn management: State-of-the-art and future trends

A business incurs much higher charges when attempting to win new customers than to retain existing ones. As a result, much research has been invested into new ways of identifying those customers who have a high risk of churning. However, customer retention efforts have also been costing organisations large amounts of resource. In response to these issues, the next generation of churn management should focus on accuracy. A variety of churn management techniques have been developed as a response to the above requirements. The focus of this paper is to review some of the most popular technologies that have been identified in the literature for the development of a customer churn management platform. The advantages and disadvantages of the identified technologies are discussed, and a discussion on the future research directions is offered.

Evolutionary computing in manufacturing industry: an overview of recent applications

Traditional methods often employed to solve complex real world problems tend to inhibit elaborate exploration of the search space. They can be expensive and often results in sub-optimal solutions. Evolutionary computation (EC) is generating considerable interest for solving real world engineering problems. They are proving robust in delivering global optimal solutions and helping to resolve limitations encountered in traditional methods. EC harnesses the power of natural selection to turn computers into optimisation tools. The core methodologies of EC are genetic algorithms (GA), evolutionary programming (EP), evolution strategies (ES) and genetic programming (GP). This paper attempts to bridge the gap between theory and practice by exploring characteristics of real world problems and by surveying recent EC applications for solving real world problems in the manufacturing industry. The survey outlines the current status and trends of EC applications in manufacturing industry. For each application domain, the paper describes the general domain problem, common issues, current trends, and the improvements generated by adopting the GA strategy. The paper concludes with an outline of inhibitors to industrial applications of optimisation algorithms.

A framework to create key performance indicators for knowledge management solutions

Knowledge management (KM) is popular within the engineering industry. With increasing investment in KM projects, companies are looking for ways to justify their effort. This research develops a framework to assess the contribution of KM solutions within a business against its corporate objectives. The framework uses a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) as lead indicators. The lead indicators are developed in line with the lag indicators at the strategic level. A number of templates is developed to implement the framework within a company. A real life case study is presented where the templates are used to identify KPIs for a manufacturing solution. The paper also gives guidelines on using the templates effectively.

Challenges in enterprise resource planning implementation: state‐of‐the‐art

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present an integrative and detailed review of the critical factors that cause enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation failures, based on an in‐depth literature review (1997‐2009).Design/methodology/approach – Keywords relating to the subject of this paper were defined, and used to search web engines and journal databases for papers on ERP implementation failures. These papers were further analysed and classified into various categories.Findings – Nine factors are found to be critical in the failure of ERP implementations: excessive customisation, dilemma of internal integration, poor understanding of business implications and requirements, lack of change management, poor data quality, misalignment of IT with business, hidden costs, limited training and lack of top management support.Research limitations/implications – The paper proposes the development of a framework to address each ERP implementation failure factor in its entirety based on the frequency...

Soft Computing in Industrial Applications

The research has developed a fuzzy logic approach to handling missing data. A prototype fuzzy model was developed, using the FuzzyTech software, to assess the quality of the steel production in terms of composition, time, and temperature. As tools like FuzzyTech are not able to handle missing data, the research has introduced a fuzzy logic approach to decision making with less data. A number of workshops were carried out in the plant, and the aired expertss knowledge was the basis for the researchs development. This paper will present the state of the art research on the application of artificial intelligence and statistical techniques for handling the missing data problem

A competitive framework for industrial product-service systems

In present economic development, the investment manufacturing companies are transforming to integrated product and service based companies for better value proposition, revenue generation opportunities and sustainable customer value. The context of this review is limited to business-to-business market and investment goods based industries. The present paper gives an understanding of the fundamentals of industrial product-service system (IPS²) thorough literature review. A new representation for the competitive IPS² in terms of 3-D space for successful business is presented. Various drivers for the IPS² are identified along with the desired results of any IPS². A new comprehensive framework has been explained for a competitive IPS² with sustainable customer value as the outcome. A need for future research and challenges posed by IPS² are pointed out from the research findings.

A knowledge management framework to support product-service systems design

This paper presents a framework for knowledge reuse in a product-service systems design scenario. The project aim is to develop a methodology to capture, represent and reuse knowledge to support product development in a collaborative enterprise context. The three core elements are: design knowledge, manufacturing capability knowledge, and service knowledge. There are three principal components of the proposed methodology. The first is a process based design model: defining design according to specific tasks, and associating previous knowledge with those tasks. The second is manufacturing capability knowledge: supporting feature based design and manufacture through representing machining features, best practices in machining and inspection, and machining capability. The third component is service knowledge: ensuring that design takes account of the service requirement. The developing paradigm of product-service systems and the requirement for co-design of products and services has influenced the structure of the knowledge base, as well as outlining specific service related requirements. This paper presents the proposed knowledge base structure along with a detailed case study in which the proposal was developed and validated.

Operations strategy for the effective delivery of integrated industrial product‐service offerings

Purpose – As enterprises focus on offering integrated product/service bundles, performance‐based contracts become ever so important in ensuring effective delivery. Performance‐based contracts fall under the result‐oriented category of industrial product service systems (PSSs). The paper aims to present a conceptual framework for operations strategy in performance‐based industrial PSSs that will help manufacturing companies configure their operations to support effective delivery of integrated product/service offering.Design/methodology/approach – This paper first develops a conceptual framework for operations strategy in performance‐based contracts by identifying the key elements after a detailed systematic review of literature. A major shift in support and maintenance logistics for complex engineering systems over the past few years has been observed in the defence and aerospace industries. Availability contracting, a special type of performance‐based contracts, is replacing traditional service procureme...