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 paper presents an approach, based on the development of digital twins, to support the transition toward electromobility and autonomy in the mining industry, by supporting the design space exploration of future operational scenarios based on different construction equipment and mining site configurations. With such an intent, the paper presents an approach combining systems and systems-of-systems simulations to run trade-off analysis based on different product-service systems (PSS) configurations. Additionally, the paper integrates the “operational context” variables in PSS design simulations to create a digital twin of a “mining operational scenario” customizable for the specific configurations of each mine. The paper exemplifies the proposed approach by contextualizing in a reference mining site describing how the multi-dimensional simulations have enabled PSS trade-off analysis and PSS sensitivity analyses, and how operational context variables are integrated into the digital twin of the operational scenario.

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.

The paper presents a Model-Driven approach for Product-Service System (PSS) Design promoting an increased digitalization of the PSS design process based on the combination of data-driven design (DDD) activities and value-driven design (VDD) methods. The approach is the results of an 8-year long research profile named (omitted for blind review) featuring the collaboration between (omitted for blind review) and nine industrial companies, in the field of PSS Design. It combines VDD models and the supporting data-driven activities in the frame of PSS design and aligns with the product value stream and the knowledge value stream in the product innovation process as described by Kennedy et al. (2008). The paper provides a high-level overview of the approach describing the different stages and activities, and provides references to external scientific contributions for more exhaustive descriptions of the research rationale and validity. The approach is meant to ultimately drive the development and implementation of a simulation environment for cross-functional and multi-disciplinary decision making in PSS, named Model-Driven Decision Arena, describe in the concluding part of the paper.

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.