The increasing digitalization of manufacturing is transforming product development towards intelligent, service-oriented systems. The existing literature shows the designing of smart vehicle will adapt to the scenario-driven of different activities in countries and cities. This study will explore a scenario driven design model for smart cockpits design based on Virtual Simulation technology and obtain design data through feedback from service industry, users, and then feedback to car companies to co-design the service offering of smart cockpit. A case is applied to the product development of a new Smart Electric VAN in collaboration with a global car manufacturer, the result of this study is based on the virtual simulation of the future service scenario in Europe. The research shows Virtual Simulation technology to enhance decision-making and prototyping for customizing the scenario-driven smart cockpits in early design stage. The smart cockpit design can be dynamically adjusted according to scenario changes to meet the cultural, regulatory and user needs of different city regions in Europe. This study verifies the effect of the scenario-driven design model in improving the adaptation of smart cockpits design to different city environments and optimizing passenger experience, while addressing its limitations and proposing future improvements.

The increasing digitalization of manufacturing is transforming product development towards intelligent, service-oriented systems. This study explores the application of Digital Twins (DT) technology in smart Product Service System (sPSS) design, proposing a framework of Super-System Digital Twin (SSDT) and eXtended Reality (XR) for supporting design. The SSDT integrates service offerings, user scenarios, and product features throughout the design process. Case is applied to the conceptual design of a Smart Electric Tourist Bus in collaboration with aglobal manufacturer, the framework utilizes eXtended Reality (XR) environment to enhance decision-making and prototyping. This research validates SSDT’s role in fostering participatory design and collaborative innovation, while addressing its limitations and proposing future improvements.

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.

When bus manufacturing companies move forward in their serviti- zation journey for providing service solutions for tourism industry, there is an increasing need to exploit the prototype way to support the realization of design solutions in the early stages of the Product Service System (PSS) design. Digital twin, a new emerging and fast growing technology which connects the physical and virtual world, has attracted much attention worldwide recently. This paper presents a new method for PSS design based on the digital twin approach. The development of product design is briefly introduced first. The framework of digital twin approach is then proposed and analysed. The main work in this research work is how to trade off the ‘realism’ of the design output of the virtual concept. A case is presented to illustrate the application of the proposed DT approach for prod- uct prototyping. Verification activities performed the case in a virtual simulation environment prototype the design concepts in the tourism industry.

The Product-Service Systems (PSS) methodology faces new challenges as digital servitisation drives product-oriented companies to integrate digital services into their offerings. A value co-creation strategy and global collaborative innovation are now essential for these companies to develop smart PSS models. This study introduces the Future Innovation Framework (FIF) which is proposed as a mechanism to facilitate value cocreation in smart PSS design, specifically tailored for global manufacturing contexts. Through qualitative analysis and literature review, the research investigates collaboration among key stakeholders, defines a structured smart PSS design process, and demonstrates how value co-creation can enhance design outcomes. The proposed FIF framework, applied to a Smart Electric Vehicle (SEV) case with Volkswagen, supports early-stage collaborative innovation and informed decision-making. This paper discusses the practical implications, challenges, and future opportunities of implementing FIF in industrial smart PSS design. Finally, the potential for adapting FIF across various industry sectors is explored.

Today, the rise of digitalization is reshaping how products are designed, produced, and consumed, challenging conventional product development paradigms. In response, manufacturing companies are increasingly adopting service-oriented business models through digital servitization, fueling the emergence of smart Product Service System (sPSS). However, the inherent complexity and need for collaborative innovation in smart PSS design requires manufacturing companies to adopt innovative design approaches that enable value-adding solutions to customers. This research addresses critical gaps in early-stage of smart PSS design, particularly in leveraging Digital Twins (DT) technology to facilitate value co-creation and support design decision-making. Despite growing interest in Digital Twins and virtual simulations, their practical application in smart PSS design remains limited, highlighting the need for new design approaches that foster collaboration and innovation in the early design stages.  To address these challenges and opportunities, this research integrates literature reviews, case studies, and empirical analysis to propose the Future Innovation Framework (FIF) and the Super-System Digital Twins (SSDT) approach for smart PSS development. Through industrial case studies, the research provides practical insights and introduces a Digital Twins approach that supports the successful implementation of smart PSS design in the context of global manufacturing companies. The findings indicate that the proposed Digital Twins approach significantly enhances concept visualization, decision-making and design prototyping in smart PSS design. Future research should focus on refining the Future Innovation Framework (FIF) and Super-System Digital Twins (SSDT) approach, exploring their scalability across various industries, and incorporating advanced AI techniques to maximize their potential.  In summary, this research contributes to the theoretical and practical advancements in smart PSS design by demonstrating how FIF and SSDT can foster more effective and innovative approach in global manufacturing companies. The proposed approach provides a robust foundation for future research and industrial applications, promoting the development of sustainable and competitive smart PSS solutions.  

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.

There is a gradually spreading servitization trend that is forcing industrial manufacturing companies acting in the global market to rethink their business. Manufacturing companies that were traditionally perceived as product-centered, are today increasingly influenced by a service-oriented theory, which claims that manufacturing companies are driven to shift their business focus towards a strategy where customer-perceived value is in the spotlight, and where products are bundled with services to offer Product-Service Systems (PSS). The need to integrate several knowledge domains (i.e. product development, service development, recycling, etc.) means that industry companies need to move “downstream” knowledge from the entire lifecycle into the early phases of the PSS design process where critical decisions are made. At the same time, this raises the awareness of, and requirements for, methods and tools that support cross-disciplinary team collaboration in the process of designing these PSS solutions. Value co-creation is one strategy to address customer collaboration to develop PSS in a framework that allows different stakeholders to participate in defining design concepts and finding the optimal combination of hardware and service that supplies the desired value. Value co-creation strategy and global collaborative innovation are essential for manufacturing companies to explore new ways of designing PSS.

The thesis summarizes the research performed by the author, as an industrial Ph.D. student and director for system innovation at BIGmind Innovation. This thesis aims to study and explore the motivation for, and challenges of, working with value co-creation for PSS design by global manufacturing companies. Firstly, the empirical research determined that there are different challenges that global manufacturing companies and product development face when designing PSS. The work involves exploring value co-creation via a customer collaborative design platform and experience prototyping for product-service system design. The research shows that there is a lack of knowledge about guidelines and processes for collaboration in value co-creation. The research emphasizes that the PSS design methodologies of today neglect to specify the roles and responsibilities of the actors who co-create PSS offerings, and there is a lack of understanding of the entire process and how it is implemented in industrial practice when developing solutions.

Conclusions from this work suggest that government policies can make a fast and major impact on the demand for innovations and PSS development. Additionally, a value co-creation approach promotes large-scale user participation in the early phase of PSS design. To enhance stakeholder participation and gather feedback, experiential prototypes were utilized during the conceptual design phase of the PSS design. To support further development in the area of value co-creation, the Future Innovation Framework (FIF) is proposed as a mechanism to facilitate the adoption and use of value co-creation of PSS design. This thesis discusses the implications, opportunities, and challenges of the FIF for industrial PSS design. The thesis concludes with a discussion on the possibility of using value co-creation for PSS design 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

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.