The manufacturing sector is witnessing a paradigm shift toward servitization, where companies are transitioning from selling products to offering product-service systems. This shift creates additional challenges, where the providers must ensure the expected value throughout the operational phase of the solution. Especially when dealing with a system-of-systems (SoS), evaluating performance across diverse contexts and business models while understanding the interconnectedness between systems becomes critical. To address these challenges during the design phase, this article presents a novel integrated simulation framework that supports the development team in exploring value from a SoS perspective. This framework utilizes agent-based simulation and offers three key features: multifidelity, modular and multidisciplinary. The applicability of the proposed framework is further demonstrated in a quarry industry case.

Effective evacuation planning is a complex challenge that aims to save lives, reduce travel time, and ensure the provision of essential care to vulnerable individuals. Evacuation simulation models are vital tools for evaluating different scenarios, identifying potential bottlenecks, and optimising strategies for large-scale evacuations.This report contains original and unpublished work that examines how these tools and their components can strengthen disaster preparedness and support decision-makers in managing the complexities of emergency response. It kicks off by outlining the key performance indicators (KPIs) relevant to large-scale evacuation, to then review current simulation approaches and their foundational building blocks. These include functions, algorithms, and models used to simulate and analyse various stages of evacuation: from pre-evacuation processes and individual decision making after a warning is issued, to traffic assignment, road network dynamics, vehicle behaviours,and shelter capacity management.The research work primarily focuses on macroscopic and mesoscopic simulation models, highlighting the strengths and limitations of the different paradigms and frameworks discussed in the literature. The report also features a curated selection of commercially available software, providing a timeline of their development, a comparison of key features, and insights into their real-world application in evacuation planning. This overview is further enriched with a series of case studies illustrating how these tools have been employed in disaster and crisis scenarios around the world.This report is published by Blekinge Institute of Technology (BTH) and is funded by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (Myndigheten för samhällsskydd och beredskap, MSB) as part of the project Digital Decision Support for Large-Scale Evacuation (DISTURB). The DISTURB project is financed through the 2:4 Crisis Preparedness Fund (Anslag 2:4 Krisberedskap), which aims tosupport initiatives that strengthen society’s ability to manage crises and their consequences, and to develop and maintain the capacity for heightened civil defence preparedness.

The paper presents a replicable simulation architecture to assess the economic, environmental, and resilience performance of commercial electric and automated marine passenger transport systems. Built on Discrete Event Simulation (DES), the architecture balances simulation complexity and detail in early system development. It comprises key components such as the modelling framework, data flow, data integration and user interface. A case study in Karlskrona, Sweden, demonstrates its application, showing that DES enhances transparency, facilitates stakeholder communication, and supports iterative solution refinement. The results highlight the architecture’s potential to support sustainable urban waterborne transport and decision-making under uncertainty.

Increasing sustainability expectations requires support for the design of systems that are reactive in minimizing potential negative impact and proactive in guiding engineering decision-making toward more value-robust long-term decisions. This article identifies a gap in the methodological support for the design of circular systems, building on the hypothesis that computer-based simulation models will drive the development of more value-robust systems designed to behave positively in a changeable operational environment during the whole lifecycle. The article presents a framework for value-robust circular systems design, complementing the current approaches for circular design aimed at increasing decision-makers' awareness about the complexity of circular systems to be designed. The framework is theoretically described and demonstrated through its applications in four case studies in the field of construction machinery investigating new circular solutions for the future of mining, quarrying and road construction. The framework supports the development of more resilient and sustainable systems, strengthening the feedback loop between exploring new technologies, proposing innovative concepts and evaluating system performance.

Manufacturing companies undergo a transformative journey in digital servitization, necessitating strategic, tactical, and operational shifts. The existing literature outlines the best practices on this process and examines challenges and opportunities through qualitative empirical evidence. We enrich the investigation through a quantitative explanatory research approach, employing a survey targeting manufacturing companies from multiple countries. Analyzing the responses using cluster analysis, we found three business typologies with specific behaviors related to digital servitization: digital experimentalists, strategic pioneers, and digital servitization novices. This research contributes valuable insights into the varied behaviors adopted by manufacturing firms in navigating the digital servitization landscape.

Today, Manufacturing companies are adopting a servitization strategy and Product-Service System model to enhance value and remain competitive. Often, this transition also means to embrace a System-of-Systems (SoS) perspective. Concurrently, companies face challenges with volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) environments. One way to tackle VUCA is to utilize simulation modeling. However, developing SoS simulations can be complex and cumbersome. This paper extracts lessons learned from six case studies to identify effective and ineffective practices in developing simulation models. The analysis has led to nine design principles for more effective simulation modeling. Furthermore, the paper explores simulation techniques for modeling SoS and discusses effective VUCA management. Finally, the paper proposes four future research directions to advance SoS simulation research.

Extended Reality (XR) technologies are increasingly popular to support the engagement of different audiences and stakeholders with Discrete Event Simulations (DES) due to their capability to deliver more accessible visual and immersive experiences. XR applications can be developed either using modules integrated into DES software or game engines, providing different sets of opportunities in the environment design. However, there is a lack of development guidelines for such environments, considering visualization, information presentation, interaction, and navigation aspects. The paper presents a systematic review of the use of XR for DES, relating the results to XR design heuristics to identify and discuss major design tradeoffs. Finally, a case study from the mining sector is exemplified to illustrate possible. solutions to balance the trade-offs. © 2024 The Authors

Recent academic contributions explore the integration of Digital Twins (DTs) within smart Product-Service System (sPSS). This integration aims to innovate business propositions, hardware and services. However, gaps persist in developing DT environments to support early-stage collaborative innovation for sPSS, and limited studies explore how real-time synchronized digital replicas enhance value co-creation in this area. This paper addresses this gap by presenting a framework and practical example of integrating value-driven decision support into early sPSS conceptual design. A case study on the development of the Smart Electric Vehicle (SEV) conducted with a global automotive Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) demonstrates the framework’s efficacy. Through qualitative data analyses based on experimental validation in a case company, the DT proves effective in aiding decision makers in selecting value-adding configurations within specific scenarios. Furthermore, the DT serves as a visual decision-making tool, fostering collaboration across diverse teams within the automotive company. This collaboration facilitates value creation across practitioners with varied backgrounds, emphasizing the DT’s role in enhancing early-stage innovation and co-creation processes in the sPSS domain.

Transportsektorn står för en betydande del av världens växthusgasutsläpp, och projektets mål är att minska dessa genom att förbättra resiliens, energieffektivitet och miljöpåverkan samt optimera ett marint transportsystem. Vattenburen kollektivtrafik har stor potential att minska trängsel och öka kapaciteten i städer, särskilt genom att utnyttja vattenvägar i kombination med väg- och spårtrafiknät.

Projektet har undersökt olika lösningar för ett marint transportsystem, med särskilt fokus på energieffektivitet, laddning, energilagring och infrastruktur. Ett centralt mål har varit att utveckla en modell för att optimera ett system som kan motstå störningar i energiförsörjningen. Genom simuleringar har systemets dimensionering, batterilagring och användning av bränsleceller utvärderats för att förbättra både resiliens och driftsäkerhet.

Resultaten visar att det är möjligt att utveckla ett mer resilient och flexibelt transportsystem genom att kombinera elektrifiering, landbaserade batterilager och bränsleceller ombord på fartyg. Detta system har potential att minska klimatpåverkan, förbättra tillgängligheten och öka transporteffektiviteten, särskilt i städer. Simuleringarna indikerar att systemet kan minska både energi- och tidsåtgång i urban trafik. För att vidareutveckla systemet planeras framtida tester och optimering med hjälp av AI för realtidsdrift samt tester av systemet i Karlskrona. Dessutom undersöks möjligheten att implementera en dual-use-användning av systemet, vilket skulle göra det möjligt att använda färjorna för andra ändamål, såsom evakuering av civila och djur eller transport av förnödenheter och skadade.

The transport sector accounts for a significant share of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, and the project's goal is to reduce these by improving resilience, energy efficiency and environmental impact, and optimizing a marine transport system. Waterborne public transport has great potential to reduce congestion and increase capacity in cities, especially by utilizing waterways in combination with road and rail transport networks.The project has investigated different solutions for a marine transport system, with a particular focus on energy efficiency, charging, energy storage and infrastructure. A central goal has been to develop a model to optimize a system that can withstand disruptions in energy supply. Through simulations, the system's dimensioning, battery storage and use of fuel cells have been evaluated to improve both resilience and operational reliability.The results show that it is possible to develop a more resilient and flexible transport system by combining electrification, land-based battery storage and fuel cells on board ships. This system has the potential to reduce climate impact, improve accessibility and increase transport efficiency, especially in cities. The simulations indicate that the system can reduce both energy and time consumption in urban traffic. To further develop the system, future tests and optimization using AI for real-time operation are planned, as well as tests of the system in Karlskrona. In addition, the possibility of implementing a dual-use use of the system is being investigated, which would make it possible to use the ferries for other purposes, such as evacuating civilians and animals or transporting supplies and injured people.

Climate change is one of the most important challenges for society to solve. However, it cannot be fixed solely through greenhouse gas reductions; it requires proactive efforts. This paper investigates how Digital Twins (DT) can serve as a support for Climate Change Adaptation (CCA), which is required to achieve climate resilience. Data was collected from a workshop targeting the role of DT in CCA, which consisted of 92 participants from the public sector in various European countries. The data was analyzed and disseminated to establish guiding principles on how DT can be deployed and designed to best fit the characteristics of CCA work. Firstly, use cases were identified based on cross-examination between CCA activities and stakeholders. Secondly, a list of needs for developing DTs to serve as CCA support was developed. Together, these aspects provide a solid base for more effective DT design in supporting the transition to a more resilient society.