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

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.

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.

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.

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.