In recent years there has been a growing interest among product development organizations to capitalize on engineering knowledge as their core competitive advantage for innovation. Capturing, storing, retrieval, sharing and reusing of engineering knowledge from a wide range of enterprise memory systems have become crucial activities of knowledge management practice in competitive organizations. In light of a changing and dynamic enterprise definition, including a move towards Product-Service System (PSS) development, this paper discusses some of the limitations of current enterprise systems in reusing engineering knowledge across functional and corporate boundaries. Further, the paper illustrates how Web 2.0-based collaborative technologies can leverage cross-functional knowledge for new PSS development projects through an open, bottom-up, and collective sense-making approach to knowledge management.

This is a qualitative single case study of a geographically distributed student team that experienced a quite different graduate course, compared to previous year's. This was due to the restrictions placed upon them following coronavirus lockdowns. With already ongoing research, and continuous development of the course, the authors had documented individual reflections and identified patterns and behaviours that seemingly determined the quality of the end result, as well as the students expectations and experiences. Semi-structured interviews, surveys and the author's individual reflection notes were already in place as part of the larger research scope and when the student team during the covid-19 year showed unexpected performance and results, the authors decided to pause the larger research scope and focus on this unique single case and capture those learnings. Not knowing how the Covid-19 situation evolves and leaning on insights from previous years, as well as this unique year, the aim with this paper is to describe the unique Covid-19 year amd share knowledge that can help improve and evolve the development of this longlived collaborative graduate student course, and other similar distributed team contexts.

This research investigates globally dispersed innovation teams involved in explorative projects within an engineering graduate course employing problem-based learning. Utilizing insights from a longitudinal study, the objective is to identify how to enhance both individual learning and team performance, thereby increasing the likelihood of a successful outcome. Initial observations revealed common patterns in learning experiences among the top-performing teams, prompting further investigation into how supporting cohorts might positively influence both team performance and students’ learning experiences throughout the course. In addition to advancing comprehension of innovation team performance, the study introduces two lightweight tools designed as shared visual representations of the team’s exploration journey. These tools can assist supporting cohorts in guiding teams effectively. This research augments the existing body of knowledge surrounding the achievement of breakthrough innovations. It provides understanding about how to facilitate team performance and individual learning within globally dispersed innovation teams undertaking explorative projects. The proposed lightweight tools offer practical solutions to enhance the supporting cohort’s ability to guide and impact team performance and individual learning experiences. This study holds implications for academia and industry, particularly organizations reliant on radical innovation for competitiveness and future-proving. Lastly, the study’s findings could inform the design and delivery of future problem-oriented, project-organized learning-based courses in engineering education.

As large manufacturing incumbents are adopting digital technologies and shifting their business models from selling products to solving problems, through PSS (product-service-system) solutions, their development processes need to shift as well. Organizational ambidexterity, the ability to both explore new opportunities and exploit existing customer offerings, is considered to be crucial to companies’ current and future success. In this study it is observed that a gap between exploration and exploitation work streams lead to promising conceptual PSS solutions never reaching a revenue generating stage. This is because product-centricity along with exploitation-optimized processes and mindsets are not equipped to carry the integrated solutions further, from proven concept to market ready solution. This article summarizes a multiple case study, where systematic innovation engineering work has resulted in promising conceptual PSS solutions never reaching market launch. In addition to the in-depth case studies, leaders of exploration-oriented teams in manufacturing incumbents shared their insights which confirmed that the problem is common across companies and industries, and several roadblocks are general. One of the authors has been responsible for a successful shift from a product-centric to an integrated solution-oriented organization and contributed insights from that experience to this study. The authors suggest that the gap between explore and exploit, and the shift from product-centric to PSS-oriented can be managed through an approach where ambidexterity is infused into the entire organization and exploration is demystified, enabling a transparent and concerted shift.

This paper covers research about how Corporate Innovation Hubs, CIHs, in Silicon Valley are managed and supported by their corporatemotherships and how their likeliness of success can be increased by consciousand proactive management and support. To embrace the cultural difference as a competitive advantage and learning experience is important. Clear intentions,expectations, team constellation, reporting level and finding the right individualas head of the CIH are identified as crucial factors to consider.

The extension of businesses to incorporate the provision of function as a service in supplement to standalone products is an ongoing movement in manufacturing industry. In short, this means that the development intent should be guided by the need of ‘performance in use’ that the customer wants, e.g. thrust rather than an engine. By this, the established knowledge base challenges the development team. This paper embarks from the assumption that there are three main challenges, i.e. (1) innovation activities, (2) customer data acquisition and (3) the transformation of data into design information. The purpose is to discuss knowledge sharing activities to contribute to product-service innovation. In this study it has been found that contemporary data acquisition activities filter out important dimensions of knowledge. Thus, does not provide a sound base for service provisions.

“Listen closely to your customers, and you are more likely to design products that actually meet or even exceed their needs.”: Such statements have come to dominate company innovation strategies in the last decade, but in reality involving customers in product development is not as straightforward as it sounds. Customers, it is becoming clear, cannot always express their needs adequately. Especially, in the case of innovative products where the starting position by definition includes no existing solution, applying a user-orientated approach is paramount. We argue that techniques for ‘needfinding’ must be the point of departure. This has importance both in terms of methodological issues – how to find customer needs? – and for organizational work – who should be engaged in finding customer needs? In our view, engineers must be involved in identifying and understanding those needs. We have learnt through a series of studies, that structured needfinding by engineers during the earliest phases of product development could better support the process of identifying needs and thereby guide design projects. In this way, two basic problems are overcome. Firstly, identifying needs which are otherwise difficult to articulate becomes possible. Secondly, translation difficulties between customers and engineers are eradicated

In this paper, practical activities of Needfinding - an intertwined approach to identifying needs and to visualizing idea concepts in early design - are described and discussed. This is done primarily to gain an increased understanding of the various representations of user needs that are fed into the fuzzy front-end activities of team-based product innovation projects. The empirical basis comes from a study of an eight-month collaborative product development project, performed under realistic conditions by MSc students in close collaboration with their client. Focusing closely on customers and their needs is encouraged within the conceptual framework of Integrated Product Development and is increasingly highlighted as a key enabler in the design of truly innovative products. Despite the fact that identified customer needs are considered as the initial and primary input into such an innovation process, it can be argued that the design teams do not commonly have a sufficient understanding of customer needs and they do not normally interact with customers in their environment. Besides focusing on measurable aspects of user behaviour and requirements, a traditional approach to identifying and managing customer needs usually includes several interpretive stages before being handed over to the design team. In the context of innovative products, the identification and definition of customers and their needs is a non-trivial and difficult exercise. It involves, we suggest, not only Needfinding but also the definition of ‘those who might need the product’, users and customers to co-evolve iteratively in the early phases of design.

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.

There is a sharp contrast between High Resource Settings (HRSs), commonly seen in developedcountries and Low Resource Settings (LRSs), typically found in the marginalised sections of societiesaround the world. Product design for LRSs is crucial to satisfy unmet or under-served needs of thepeople living in LRSs. Supporting designers to develop successful products for LRSs demandsdeveloping an in-depth understanding of their design process, including their informational behaviour.In this research, using think aloud protocol analysis, we compared the designers’ informationalbehaviour in designing products for LRSs and HRSs, where HRSs is considered a baseline. The findingsindicate that designing products for LRSs is more information intensive, and that it influences theinformational activities of designers, thus indicating potential impact of a resource-setting on the waydesigners deal with information.

With more projects in today’s industry being global it is important to support the people collaborating in these projects. Travel is expensive and time consuming and is not viable in the long run. Although some travel is necessary it is important for people to meet virtually instead. In many cases it is difficult for companies to collaborate because they do not use the same tools for these virtual meetings. Due to restrictions with IT security it is also difficult and expensive to implement every new tool their partner companies use. One solution could be a portal that facilitates connecting users with different virtual meeting tools. Using Web Services to bridge the different protocols it would be possible to connect two software packages that are using different standards for virtual meetings. With a tool as this it would be possible for chosen companies to collaborate closely online although they have incompatible software packages. Companies can select their solutions on the basis of their needs and do not have to implement a new solution or modify their existing setup to accommodate new partner needs. Finally, people would only need to learn the one tool which is available in their own company.

VIVACE is an EC-funded integrated project that addresses aeronautics´ vision for the year 2020. More specifically VIVACE intends to achieve cost reduction and time reduction in new aircraft development. VIVACE consists of three sub-projects where the two first extracts problems from aircraft and engine industries respectively. The third sub-project collects these problems and develops advanced capabilities (methods, tools, guidelines, etc.). The ’Knowledge Enabled Engineering’ (KEE) work package in sub-project three focuses issues on concerns associated with knowledge within an extended enterprise. This includes both Knowledge Based Engineering (KBE) issues, but also more general questions about engineering knowledge. The work starts in analysing requirements from use cases via finding existing solutions to conducting tests in the form of pilots. Finally the knowledge acquired is disseminated to both the aeronautics community and also to a wider audience in Europe and the rest of the world.

In aeronautics industry today, companies collaborate closely in virtual enterprises to develop products and solutions that are more integrated and more complex, and that aims to target larger responsibilities regarding the product life-cycle. On top of this, lead-time and development costs needs to be reduced.<br/>The 7 Day Proposal (7DP) is the conceptual name of a framework wherein a customized proposal is produced by a virtual enterprise consortium within seven days from a received request for proposal. This is substantially shorter than what is current practice today and implies that new methods, tools and ways of working are needed. Today, in offer processes, time is lost because of insufficient, or immature, available information and knowledge at gate reviews when decisions are due, causing time consuming iterations. <br/>The Gated Maturity Assessment (GMA) concept is intended to help reduce these costly iterations by targeting the ambiguity at these gate reviews in order to reduce the uncertainty in decision base. <br/>Other frameworks using maturity include Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) and the Capability Maturity Model (CMM). TRL is an artefact-focused framework developed by NASA to assess space technology maturity. CMM is a process-focused framework for assessing organisations' software development process capability (maturity). <br/>The GMA is a concept for assessing the maturity of the knowledge that goes into a gate review (i.e. a decision document). The GMA is intended to support decision makers by assuring confidence in these decision points and thereby reducing the number of iterations, hereby reducing lead-time and increases the quality of the process.<br/>This paper reports on the development of the GMA concept from the 7DP use case, and also the development of a support tool intended for use in the 7DP process. <br/>Essentially, the 7DP process is a stage-gate process like many corporate product development processes with a number of decision gates. Therefore there is a future wish to move towards an engineering design context with this concept. <br/>The work is part of the 70 million € European project VIVACE where GMA is part of a Knowledge Enabled Engineering solution to the 7DP use case.

This paper discusses Information Driven Collaborative Engineering (IDCE) as an enabler of Functional Product Innovation (FPI). It discusses challenges that arise in functional product development and how distributed collaborative work will be affected. Finally the paper proposes bringing the domains of Distributed Collaborative Engineering (DCE) and Knowledge Enabled Engineering (KEE) together to form IDCE, in order to meet these challenges.

A company’s ability to successfully introduce radically new products and services is a key success factor for sustaining competitive advantage. This is particularly true for the automotive industry, where smaller manufacturers with niche products struggle to compete with the large-scale efforts of their bigger competitors, and are thus in desperate need to innovate their way out of the current crisis. A key challenge for companies seeking innovation is how to better understand the role of risk in innovative practice. The purpose of this study is to investigate how managers within an automotive company perceive the concept of innovation and the relation between innovation and risk. The study is based on interviews with fifteen managers representing a cross-section of disciplines. The analysis of the informants’ answers resulted in two overarching themes, “novelty” and “value”, which were further broken down into seven sub-themes to highlight different facets of innovation that were raised by managers from these disciplines. While there were many similarities in the perceptions, the most striking differences related to; 1) innovation as being about the “combination of things to something new”, and 2) innovation as being about increasing “customer value”. Several informants noted that risk taking is a success factor to achieve innovation, but they also acknowledged that there are several inhibiting factors that are in contradiction with this approach, such as limited time and money. Further the paper has highlighted the crucial challenge of how to effectively balance risk and opportunity to invest in long-term opportunities, without risking short-term growth.

In a traditional business partnership, the partner companies are under contractual obligation to share data, information, and knowledge through one or several information systems that the leading firm decides. In such a case, the issue of sharing "whatever needs to be shared" is settled in contracts before any action is taken, however, also giving the implications that sharing expertise becomes a heavy and time-consuming activity. In turn, it can be argued that the heavy administration affects the lead time of product development negatively since the necessary input flows are delayed. In addition, the adaptation to certain predefined collaborative information systems is both expensive and resource-consuming (e.g., educating staff to use them). Also, the system might not be adaptable to the existing internal technology structure, causing a "translation" procedure, again taking up resources. Another structure for collaboration is a network or alliance of independent partner companies. One motivation for a network structure is that the partners can join or leave it more easily. A reason for joining and staying is an implicit sense of knowledge sharing (Tomkins 2001) and access to a "win-win" environment. Furthermore, the partners can be linked by information technology, i.e., forming a virtual ­structure rather than a physical one. The technologies provide the channels with additional knowledge. In a best-case scenario, a company would get access to a wide range of useful competences, and in a worst-case scenario the company would be drained of its core competences. Accordingly, at least two considerations for joining a partner network can be considered. First, the resources needed to couple the technologies have to be reasonable, due to the underpinning logic of going in and out of more than one network. Second, the company has to identify its knowledge base and evaluate the prospective gains and losses of sharing its expertise.

In a Virtual Enterprise setting, it becomes increasingly important to make sure that knowledge and expertise created in one discipline, domain or company is correctly understood and quickly utilized by other actors throughout the value chain. This paper discusses why lightweight technology seems like a particularly promising concept in this context, and why Virtual Enterprises could benefit from learning more about tag clouds, mashups, wikis, and other ‘lightweight' technologies, as complements to the large-scale, arguably ‘heavyweight', product life-cycle management (PLM) systems of current practice. The paper draws on data from a number of product development projects - ranging from the development of manufacturing tools and industrial drive systems, to aircraft engines and armored terrain vehicles. The paper identifies both the kinds of problem typically experienced in the Virtual Enterprise, in relation to knowledge sharing, and explores ways in which lightweight technology might be adapted to solve them.

Drawing from experiences in automotive and aerospace development, the authors argue that it is time to radically progress our current understanding of how creativity could be introduced in organizations where factors like legal demands and contractual agreements severely restrict ‘outside-the-box' thinking, and where well-known creativity enablers such as trust, shared goals, and shared culture are becoming increasingly difficult to accomplish. <br/>

There is a growing need for engineering designers to engage in creative activities that result in innovative products and technologies for the benefit of society. However, from an engineering perspective, issues of ‘life quality’ are currently heavily under-prioritized, particularly with regard to people with disabilities. This paper argues that both needs and solutions are now part of the designer’s responsibility, and that it is crucial to make a qualitative assessment of both the potential market impact and the ‘quality of life’ improvements afforded by innovations. Design for Wellbeing offers a perspective on life quality that goes beyond the traditional scope of assistive technology in that it aims to help people make a transformation from an actual state of being to a desired state of being – regardless of ability level.

The Division of Computer Aided Design has been announced as one of ten winners in the Intranet Design Annual, published by web guru Jakob Nielsen at Nielsen/Norman Group. In competition with over 50 nominated organizations, the division's Intranet, developed by Andreas Larsson, Tobias Larsson and Peter Törlind, reached the top ten. Nielsen has been called the "guru of webpage usability" by the New York Times, and he currently holds 60 U.S. Patents, most of them concerning web usability. The report states: “It is also notable that Luleå University of Technology made it to the top 10, despite being designed by a bunch of graduate students. Though small and lacking a lot of resources, this design team focused relentlessly on user needs and on simplifying their design through many fast iterations. Some of the Luleå features underwent up to 50 iterations before they reached their current usability level. ‘I thought my initial design for the calendar application was really easy to use - in fact, I was quite proud of it,’ says one of the developers. But, the design didn’t hold up when professors and other staff members used it, so it was changed. User needs triumphed over the designer’s initial pride. That’s the hallmark of a truly great designer. On a small budget, the way to achieve high-quality design is through fast, cheap iterations and a willingness to do what users need.”

As a result of the increasing globalisation of organizations, information systems must deal with issues of mobility. Longer distances between the members can lead to a knowledge gap, which means that two groups of people working in the same organization work according to completely different bases of information. Thus, there is a need for the members of an organization to communicate efficiently across geographical and departmental boundaries. The paper discusses motives, methods and experiences from the participatory design of a versatile Intranet application currently in use at the Division of Computer Aided Design, Luleå University of Technology in Sweden.

In response to the need for increased effectivity in global product development, the Polhem Laboratory at Luleå University of Technology, Sweden, and the Center for Design Research at Stanford University, USA, have created the concept of Distributed Team Innovation (DTI). The overall aim of the DTI framework is to decrease the negative impact of geographic distance on product development efforts and to further enhance current advantages of worldwide, multidisciplinary collaboration. The DTI framework uses a three-layered approach to the advancement of global collaboration; with product development, education, and research in dynamic and synergetic interaction. From our preliminary findings, we believe that the approach we have taken in the DTI initiative will make significant contributions to meet current challenges of distributed product development.

From being a specialized tool, used in only a few of the design stages, modeling and simulation has become a strategically and competitive tool the global manufacturing firm can’t do without in order to perform world class product development. Simulations have grown from being small isolated models treated at one geographic place to be multidisciplinary and incorporating whole product structures. This means that information, i.e. simulation models, might be located at departments across the entire organization, hence in the global organization across the world and the efforts to perform simulations will be complicated. A method, or tool, that use the Internet for sharing and incorporating modular Simulation models, within the framework of multibody dynamics, is proposed and developed in this work.

Computer-based tools for modelling and simulation have changed the best practise of product development. Simulation of mechanical dynamic systems have a large potential in product development but are only partly used today due to, for example, modelling complexity. A method, or tool, that supports distribution of multibody dynamic analysis models, in a modular way, is proposed and developed. Ethnographic methods have been used as a means for gaining an understanding of the engineering analysis work practice. The tool incorporates the engineering simulation packages ADAMS and MATLAB in a web based environment, and allows distributed multibody dynamic simulation in product development.

A method that supports distribution of multibody dynamic analysis is proposed and developed. Ethnographic methods are used as a means for gaining a deeper understanding of the engineering analysis work practice, and the findings form the base for a cooperative design of the system. The concept of design rationale is applied in order to deal with current problems of engineering analysis, such as irrelevant input and output, as well as satisfying the need for useful, real-time feedback. The web based simulation environment, applied to vehicle system dynamics, contains the simulation packages ADAMS and MATLAB and incorporates database technology. The possibility to distribute simulation models and results, from simulation experts to design experts and engineers, as well as subcontractors, is created. The proposed method requires changes in the existing multibody dynamic simulation methodology regarding aspects of incorporation in product development theories

Design for Wellbeing (DfW) will enable persons with disabilities to influence their everyday living conditions through active participation in the design of the assistive devices they use in their daily lives. One objective is to enhance the wellbeing of persons with disabilities by using their descriptions of needs in relation to assistive devices as a starting point for product development. We aim to give users an active role in developing their own assistive devices by allowing people from various disciplines to work with them in a product development team, to improve the wellbeing of persons with disabilities, and to develop product development methodology with respect to a more empowered user role in product innovation processes. This paper reports on the fundamental concept of DfW, but also on two nine-month student projects, CRE[ATIVO]2 and INTELiCare, that have been carried out as joint efforts between Luleå University of Technology, the Royal Institute of Technology and Stanford University.

There is a growing need for engineering designers to engage in creative activities that result in innovative products and technologies for the benefit of society. However, from an engineering perspective, issues of ‘life quality’ are currently heavily under-prioritized, particularly with regard to people with disabilities. This paper argues that both needs and solutions are now part of the designer’s responsibility, and that it is crucial to make a qualitative assessment of both the potential market impact and the ‘quality of life’ improvements afforded by innovations. Design for Wellbeing offers a perspective on life quality that goes beyond the traditional scope of assistive technology in that it aims to help people make a transformation from an actual state of being to a desired state of being – regardless of ability level.

Multiple functional challenges in the use of pharmaceutical packaging reveal a great need of packaging to be designed inclusively. This study investigates patient involvement in the pharmaceutical packaging design process by analysing interview data from representatives of the pharmaceutical and packaging industry. Four main themes related to patient involvement were uncovered: patient expertise levels, patient involvement modes, factors encouraging patient involvement, and factors discouraging patient involvement. Passive patient involvement modes were found to be dominant due to regulations and a traditional perspective regarding physical testing. However, active patient involvement modes were identified, motivated by empathy and understanding of the lives of patients. The pharmaceutical packaging design process is complex and involves multiple stakeholders. The research findings can inspire more industry practitioners and policymakers to design pharmaceutical packaging that is inclusive and with consideration of a broader spectrum of patients’ needs. 

Different levels of user involvement in product design range from understanding user needs to codesigning with users. Previous research shows older patients face difficulties to handle the medication packaging. Yet the participation of older patients in pharmaceutical packaging design is underexplored. The purpose of this study is to explore the role of older patients in the design and development of pharmaceutical packaging. Two empirical examples of one drug manufacturer and one pharmaceutical packaging supplier build one case study. The findings reveal new pharmaceutical packaging development starts with market research about patients' populations. The packaging development is then led internally or with external partners. Later, patients test the packages concepts developed. These findings go in line with previous research about the involvement of users in industries with a high technology orientation. This study is aligned with the about limited resources in healthcare and contributes with a conceptual framework of user involvement, a useful tool for managers and developers to benchmark their design process.

This paper presents an explorative study and the results of 17 interviews with informants from different companies. Its purpose is to identify the challenges associated with implementing agile methods along with the established procedures for early design. The study exemplifies project leaders’ experiences and implementation efforts. As leaders of design projects, they have proposed the use of a new method that involves teams engaging in testing and evaluation, which aids in the understanding and introduction of change initiatives. The challenges that are identified are as follows: (1) a lack of approval not only from top managers but also from critical peers; (2) an unprepared organization that did not allow teamwork; and (3) a lack of specific company success factors to support new methods.

 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. 

Product development in the aerospace industry is associated with relatively long lead times and product lifecycles, which means that it takes years and even decades to find out if a novel product or technology concept fully realizes its potential and becomes an innovation on the market. How can a company in such an industry context know, preferably already in the conceptual stages, that they are on the path to innovation? How do they know how innovative they are? How can they increase their innovation capability? A project together with Volvo Aero, an aero engine manufacturer, was initiated to explore potential answers to these questions. The paper reports on an ongoing study of the company’s current state-of-practice with regard to measuring innovation capability, starting from a range of innovation indicators provided within a previous research project, which Volvo Aero contributed to. Based on interviews with project managers of advanced engineering projects within the company, six areas were found to be of importance in order to more effectively measure the innovation capability at Volvo Aero: Project selection, Customer involvement, Interaction between functions, Team climate, Innovation methodology and Innovation rewards. Within these areas a selection of preliminary metrics was established, which will be presented in this article along with a discussion on the advantages and drawbacks of combining activity and effect measures to better relate particular activities to particular outcomes.

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.

Manufacturing companies are increasingly transitioning from a product-centric to a smart Product Service System (smart PSS) approach to enhance customer satisfaction, service offerings, and product competitiveness through a combination of usage scenarios and digital components. In the context of Industry 5.0 transformation such as developing the Smart Electric Vehicle (SEV), the automotive industry faces the challenge of understanding customers’ descriptions of usage scenarios and translating the qualitative aspects of these scenarios into quantitatively assessed product features for collaborative value co-creation in smart PSS design. This paper addresses this challenge through utilizing Natural Language Processing (NLP) joint with Value-Driven Design (VDD) method for successfully supported a collaborative value exploration of in the smart PSS design stage. A case study was collaborated with a global automotive Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), Volkswagen, through proposing a NLP BERT model for VDD of Smart Electric Vehicle (SEV) design. Validation activities were performed by deploying the developed BERT model to the case company based on the scenario design of new car models.

Together with increasingly saturated and commoditized global markets companies are driven to shift their business focus, adopting a strategy where customer perceived value is in the spotlight, and where products are bundled with services to offer Product-Service Systems (PSS). In this research we study the emergence of PSS solutions in the Chinese market via a selected case study on e-scooters, based on the governmental decision to ban fossil-fuel scooters in the late 90s and how this has spurred both a fossil-to-electric transformation and a product-to-function transformation. As seen in this research PSS is also an approach that is working well in the Eastern society and especially in China, based on governmental policies. It is gradually being adopted and applied in local industries significantly by China’s leading internet companies (Didi, Alibaba etc). The PSS concept represented by e-bike cases in China has gradually penetrated into different industries. With governmental decisions as the key turn-point, it can be seen in practice and development that China’s related service industry is using e-bike PSS to carry out the new business model from selling e-bikes to providing service-oriented solutions. 

Today, the Product-Service Systems (PSS) methodology is challenged by the emerging trend of digital servitization in supporting the development of the primarily product-oriented companies. Value co-creation strategy and global collaborative innovation are important for product-oriented industry to explore new ways of designing of smart PSS. In this paper, the Future Innovation Framework (FIF) is proposed as a mechanism to facilitate the adoption and use of value co-creation of smart PSS design in global manufacturing companies. Through qualitative research and literature review, the research focused on the collaboration between typical stakeholders in manufacturing industry, defining a smart PSS design process, and explaining how value co-creation could more effectively support the PSS design. This study proposes the FIF for smart PSS design from the perspective of value co-creation, to support the collaborative innovation teamwork, customer involvement and decision-making in the early design phase of smart PSS. The paper explains each of the design processes in which the product-oriented industry can use the FIF framework when designing smart PSS. The FIF was applied to an industrial smart PSS case – the design of the new product and service offering by automotive manufacturer Volkswagen. The FIF was used to verify the design of customer solution proposals for smart PSS. This paper discusses the implications, opportunities and challenges of the FIF for industrial smart PSS design. The paper concludes with a discussion on the possibility of using FIF in different industry domains in the future.

This work focuses on exploring how to transform the PSS strategy through conceptual design and prototyping to a way in which different stakeholders in the case car company – SAIC Motor – can experience and give feedback on the PSS strategy, analyze the impact of the PSS strategy on the process of customized digital service design in a traditional Chinese car company. Also, the work discusses how to increase the service value for different stakeholders in the overall PSS system