The construction industry is ripe for disruption through innovative solutions that provide added productivity. Equipment manufacturers are attempting to disrupt their industry with investments in autonomy, electrification and product-service system business models. Designing solutions that will operate in completely new systems or modify an existing complex system require new approaches to address the uncertainty of system impacts. An iterative approach can help tackle ambiguity through cyclical validation of design decisions. Data mining in each cycle adds a quantitative dimension to the rationale of decision making, but data is sparse and difficult to collect in parallel with design of theoretical product-service systems operating in future scenarios. This can be combated using experiential prototyping techniques to design flexible infrastructure that supports contextualized data gathering in a variety of focused design sprints using Design, Build and Test approach. The intricacy of designing innovative solutions to increase productivity in the construction industry can be untangled by framing aspects of the problem in small sprints and testing them in a contextualized setting built to generate functional data to drive design.

Using a case study methodology to exploring an ambitious experimental combination of a construction equipment manufacturer’s products tailored to provide exponential increases in efficiency and reductions in CO2. The products and system represent a relevant example of new technology being the foundation upon which a functional offering IPSS can be designed. The researcher constructed a scaled down functional experiential prototype reflecting a full scale experimental all electric quarry site in under operation outside of Goteborg, Sweden. The prototype site represented the primary equipment and system functionality, to act as a boundary object around which relevant stakeholders both internal and external could share the vision of an electric autonomous future. This was confirmed via observation at an event where the scale site was used for this purpose and verified with follow up interviews to dig deeper into the impact this tangible representation could have in increasing the perceived viability of the full scale technology’s potential on display thousands of miles from the event.

 Heavy equipment manufacturers recognise an opportunity to realise customer value gains through offering new Product-Service Systems. Such transition implies a radical shift in how new systems are designed. Based on a set of interviews the paper investigates how radical PSS innovation can be enabled by the use of physical prototypes as boundary object to navigate early PSS design ambiguity. On such basis, suggestions for augmenting existing support tools are made in relation to the existing literature. 

Prototypes are an established tool for rapidly increasing learning, communication and decision making rationale for design projects. The proven success has spawned a litany of approaches and methods for building and planning the efficient planning and construction of prototypes. Translating these methods into simple usable tools to assist novice designers has generated broadly applicable canvases to support prototyping across the design process. Product Service System design has similarly introduced prototyping methods and tools into the process. Presently there is a lack of support for generating early phase tangible prototypes for functional PSS design aimed at more radically innovative solutions instead of currently dominant traditional products with traditional add-on services. This work explores the viability of utilizing existing prototyping support tools in the context of early PSS design through workshops with student designers and practitioners. The data from these workshops illuminates the alignments and misalignment gaps presented as guidelines to enable better support for early PSS designers. 

To support the application of automated machines andcollaborative robots in unstructured environments like in the mining,agriculture and construction sector the needs of the human co-workershould be investigated to ensure a safe and productive collaboration.The empirical study presented includes the prototyping of a solution forhuman-machine communication, which has been supported by a designthinking approach. An understanding of the human needs had beencreated through jobsite observations and semi-structured interviewswith human workforces working in close proximity to heavy mobileequipment. The results shows that trust and communication have a bigimpact on the jobsite collaboration.

The paper presents the experience collected in a case study in the construction equipment concerning the use of physical prototypes for the development of product-service systems (PSS) enabled by new digital technologies. The paper firstly presents how a scaled physical prototype has been deployed to foster value co-creation with customers about the cross-disciplinary opportunity of the transition toward autonomous and electrical construction sites. Secondly, the paper presents the lessons learned during the empirical study. © 2021, IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.

Product Service System solutions have proven to be a valuable innovation approach for industry organizations to differentiate themselves in a competitive market. Modern interpretations of PSS design have urged a move towards developing transformative innovations which are more than the sum of their parts. Achieving this transition in PSS design requires new tools to support designers in broader exploration of the design space to find a potentially transformative solution concept.

To radically increase the value delivered to the customers in the construction industry a concerted effort is needed to develop solutions beyond incremental adjustments. Simply providing add-on services to existing products does not effectively create solutions with enough gains in core customer values. Designing and developing a product service system (PSS) through the adjustment or reconfiguration of existing elements is a challenge on its own, and adding the design of new elements serves to confound the process even further. By realigning all components of a PSS from inception to a function provides an opportunity to escape current product limitations and explore new solutions with potentially higher value. Designing a new PSS solution from scratch comes with added ambiguity in an expanded solution space.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate early conceptual phases of PSS innovation within the domain of construction equipment manufacturing. The research included the development and testing of a prototyping method to foster customer co-creation and transdisciplinary design which are considered primary impact factors increasing the value of final PSS solutions.

The work was performed in collaboration with a construction equipment manufacturer, conducting a demonstrator project on an electric and autonomous production site. The thesis first depicts how the prototyping method can be implemented to enable stakeholder insights that were previously not accessible through current practices. This leads to the testing of the method in a broader perspective to represent tangible and intangible elements in a way that facilitates concept design decisions in multi-disciplinary settings. The thesis concludes by exploring the limitations on current practices in relation to the adoption and potential use of the method.