The field of industrial sustainability is rapidly expanding with new concepts and frameworks emerging almost daily. At the same time, mature ones are being used in new applications and combined with new technologies and methodologies. While these developments are promising, the ambitions, scale, and speed of the change required to meet sustainability goals urgently need to increase. To accelerate industrial sustainability research and its impact, experts were invited to discuss research challenges in a webinar series focused on ten priority areas for eco-efficient and circular industrial systems. This paper presents the research challenges discussed to share sustainability practices, stimulate collaborations, and inspire change for more impactful applied research and knowledge transfer to industry.

The emergence of IoT has propelled the traditionally known Product-Service System (PSS) to be characterized by smarter technologies, enabling them to collect and process data from the operational stage and facilitate communication between the customer and the provider. Commonly referred to as Smart Product-Service Systems (Smart PSS), these systems promise to create value at a personal level by collecting and effectively utilizing the operational data. However, one of the fundamental challenges is the lack of awareness as to what kind of data can be collected from the operational stage and what can be achieved from this data. This paper systematically reviews scientific literature to underline the kind of data being collected from the operational stage, the purposes being achieved from that data, and how they lead to value creation. The systematic review of 60 representative studies enabled the definition of the operational scenario that comprises 4 dimensions of data and 10 classes of data within these dimensions to generically identify what kind of data is being collected. The intend presented by various authors led to the generalization of 5 themes that target different purposes of collecting data. Further, the papers were classified with regards to functional or non-functional requirements to see how data in different approaches are leveraged for value creation. Finally, the discussion highlights the current gaps in the literature and raises several opportunities for future contributions.

The rapid development of new technologies such as electrification, autonomy, and other contextual factors pose significant challenges to development teams in balancing competing aspects while developing value-robust solutions. One approach for achieving value robustness is designing for changeability. This paper presents a tradespace exploration from a Systems-of-Systems perspective to facilitate changeability assessment during early design stages. The approach is further demonstrated on a fleet of haulers operating in a mining site. © 2024 Proceedings of the Design Society. All rights reserved.

Product-Service Systems (PSS) have emerged as a key concept to meet the societal and market trends of increasing customer needs through the entire life-cycle. Unfortunately, several companies are struggling with getting revenues from service investments and translating 'real needs' to design improvements. The demand of the designer to go beyond the Voice of the Customer (VoC) is evident. This paper aims to map the interventions proposed by research in the area of PSS and VoC. Using a systematic mapping approach, the research domain was analyzed with regards to context and interventions. The results show a progressive development in the research area with a focus on the specification and realization of needs. A gap exists in connecting the engineers with 'real needs' and integrating the customer as a natural part of the entire development cycle of a PSS. By performing a systematic mapping, future research can be more focused and hopefully increasing its impact.

Value co-creation is an important aspect for servitized companies operating a Product-Service System business. However, their relation to value co-creation might depend on where they are on the servitization journey. This paper described the result of a multiple-case study with three industrial partners and their perspectives on the challenges and opportunities with value co-creation for data-driven Product-Service Systems. © 2022, IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.

The design process aims to maximize the value in the end solution. For traditional manufacturing firms pursuing a servitization strategy, non-functional requirements become more important compared to before. Therefore, this paper investigates issues in capturing and utilizing non-functional requirements for value creation in a servitizing firm. A single case study was conducted, which resulted in six issues across the design process. It was evident from the research that the firm requires new support to enable a better inclusion of non-functional requirements in the design process.

With the advances of telemetries and computational power, the question for firms is no longer what can be collected but what shall be collected. It is easy to add sensors and gather a vast amount of data but without knowing their purpose, the gains are marginal. In the field of Value-Driven Design, value is quantified and measured to ensure an overall higher output, something crucial for complex and ambiguous domains such as Product-Service Systems. This paper aims at finding the connection between PSS value and operational data from an industrial perspective. By using Participatory Action Research in a manufacturing firm, a value-data framework and method were developed that succeed in connecting these two extremities as well as visualize them with the support of network graph theory.

The increased sophistication of customer needs pushes manufacturers toward integrated offerings where physical products and intangible services collaboratively generate value, also known as Product-Service Systems (PSS). This shifts the focal point from product performance to overall system functionality. However, this naturally increases the importance of requirements linked to the operation and the system's behavior, e.g., reliability, safety, and flexibility. These kinds of requirements that dictate how a system should behave and operate in its context are called non-functional requirements. However, most manufacturing firms have a legacy of focusing mainly on functional requirements. 

Alongside this trend, there has been an increasing affordability and availability of data. However, how this data can be utilized for value creation remains a question for the industry. Operational data can serve as a vital source of information about the PSS behavior and value delivery process. Since non-functional requirements depend on the operational context for measuring their performance, operational data can thus provide new insights. 

This thesis aims to study the motivation for and challenges of working with non-functional requirements and value within Digital PSS design by manufacturing firms. Firstly, the management of non-functional requirements in the design process is studied. The empirical research determined that there are six challenges that a design team and organization face when working with non-functional requirements. The challenges highlight that non-functional requirements’ fuzzy and intangible aspects make them easy to neglect and hard to include in design and decision-making. A state-of-the-art review is conducted to identify possible remedies.

Onward, the intersection between data and value is explored. An overarching classification of operational data and how these can contribute to different forms of value creation is presented based on previous literature. Further, the analysis shows what kind of operational data can be collected using three levels of granularity. Experiences and reflections from multiple companies at different stages in their servitization journey are gathered to complement and expand the perspective on operational data and value.

Innovation plays a vital role in ensuring sustainable mining operations. Electrification and autonomy are two significant trends, but their implementation brings complexity at vehicle and site levels. Therefore, it is crucial to understand how these technologies impact the overall site value creation. This paper suggests a hybrid approach that combines Agent-Based Simulation and vehicle dynamics modeling to explore site configurations. By regarding a mining site as a System-of-Systems, designers can concurrently test different designs to find the optimal combination for a specific scenario.

As manufacturing firms move from pure product-based business models toward Product-Service Systems offerings, value creation becomes more complex and requires more active cross-disciplinary collaboration. Especially non-functional values, those connected to the overall PSS behavior, depend on the successful alignment and coordination between perspectives. However, understanding the value creation itself, particularly among different departments or stakeholders, can be challenging. This paper conceptualizes a value model and a method based on Group Model Building to support value exploration of non-functional design objectives in early-stage Product-Service System design. The value model is constructed based on three layers of granularity to visualize how value is created holistically. Further, the proposed method allows participants to jointly explore and identify design objectives and put these in the context of value. The method and model were tested at two companies, showing that the proposed method and model successfully supported a collaborative value exploration in the non-functional domain. © 2023, IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.