The existing PSS design models/frameworks were analysed through the conventional design process by Pahl and Beitz (1988). This conventional design process consists of the following phases: ideation and task analysis, conceptual design, embodiment design, and validation and release. We identified and tabulated the existing PSS models/framework, which falls under the above design processes. Table 4.1 summarize the analysis of existing PSS models/frameworks.
Table 4.1: Analysis of PSS design models/frameworks
Author(s) & Year Ideation & Task analysis
Conceptual design
Embodiment design
Validation &
Release
(Morelli, 2006) X X X
(Sakao et al., 2009) X X X
(Kindström &
Kowalkowski, 2009) X
(Maussang et al., 2009) X X X
(Geum et al., 2011) X X
(J. Lee & AbuAli, 2011) X X
(C. H. Lim et al., 2012) X (Berkovich et al., 2014) X (Hussain et al., 2012) X
(Y. S. Kim et al., 2013) X X
(Ana Paula Bezerra Barquet
et al., 2013a) X
(Rapaccini et al., 2013) X
(Marques et al., 2013) X X X
(Bertoni et al., 2013) X
(Tran & Park, 2014) X X X
(Zine et al., 2016a) X X
(Pezzotta et al., 2015) X X
(Muto et al., 2015) X
(Joore & Brezet, 2015) X X X
(Trevisan & Brissaud, 2016) X X X
‘X’ denotes the topics discussed in SS ideation, conceptual design, embodiment design and validation
Analysis of PSS design models/frameworks indicates that most of the models proposed mainly focus on a specific phase of the design process. There is a need to combine PSS approaches into design activities, defining an organized procedure to guide designers throughout the various activities that characterize the whole PSS service development process. The PSS development models are primarily discussed in the literature for the manufacturing, automobile industries, tourism and service sectors. There is a lack of a service process in PSS for e- commerce business models.
4.1.1 Service system design framework - Proposal
The methods or tools considered in the proposed service system design framework are not new.
They are well established and often used in design management, design, information system, service design and system design disciplines. The prime contribution of the study is the structured and systematic selection, flow and application of the methods in Product Service System context inspired by design. Significant research contribution also lies in application of these methods in generating a service process for e-commerce of domestic plumbing services.
The consideration of the domestic plumbing services case example guides the pathway to the development of the service process in PSS.
Morelli (2006) suggested application of design tools/methods in developing a PSS. Moreover, tools like scenarios and use cases in the narrative form should be considered in the definition phases. In contrast, techniques like service blueprint and system analysis, which are in the technical form, must be preferred in defining a PSS structure. Services are an essential part of the developing phases and product development (Marques et al., 2013). Product development involves various activities, from the product-centric in fulfilling customer needs to finish the production, delivery and selling of a product in the market. Nevertheless, service entities also play an essential role in adding value to the product and retaining customers. Although several methodologies in this context have been proposed in the PSS literature, none have been detailed in the entire lifecycle of PSS from design management perspective.
Service development methodologies are few compared to product development methodologies.
Besides, in PSS, development methodologies provide little attention to service and are complex (Marques et al., 2013). Tran and Park (2014) suggest employing the design sequence of product and service components while designing PSS. According to Maussang et al. (2009), PSS comprises service units and physical objects. As a whole system, physical objects are functional entities and service units are mainly technical. These play a role in elementary functions and
the smooth functioning of the whole system. In addition, these elements have relationships and interactions. Therefore, developing a PSS into a whole system has various influencing elements and must be considered in the early design phases. Influencing elements are viz. partners and organization of the enterprise, benefits for customer/provider (economic assessments), physical objects with service units, environmental aspects, social aspects and encouraging PSS (use instead of owning a product). Engineers focus on the design of tangible products and their interactions with other objects. However, the associated technical services part is neglected (Maussang et al., 2009).
The capabilities required for service development depend on communication and empathy with customers and combining various types of knowledge (Beltagui, 2018). Customer centric design and focus on service processes are also essential for service development (Rapaccini et al., 2013). The design process has to consider broader information about designing an effective PSS model (Kim et al., 2013). Therefore, the proposed PSS service development process model involves integrated strategic management and engineering perspectives, design thinking, service design and information system design. The proposed service development process model includes three phases: requirements identification & analysis, design & detailing, and test and implementation. The proposed framework model is named “service system design framework” because it focuses on identifying service needs, visualization and mapping, and experimenting with the service part of the PSS. Figure 4.1 illustrates the proposed PSS service development process.
Figure 4.1: Proposed service system design framework from PSS perspective
The proposed model provides a continuing mechanism so that each phase’s output provides input to the following phase. Nevertheless, the phases are non-linear and iterative; therefore as depicted in figure 4.1 there is a feedback loop in each phase. Table 4.2 depicts reasons for considering the methods/tools/techniques in the proposed service system design framework.
The description of each phase is presented below,
Requirement Identification & Analysis phase 1: Design principles and customer needs typically cast the requirements in the early stages of development. We generate customer requirements with a structured questionnaire to understand the customer’s lifecycle using the product or service. Ranking and prioritizing would help manage resources better and result in higher customer satisfaction levels, increased competitiveness, decreased environmental impact and material savings. The Rough Group Analytic Hierarchy Process method (Song et al., 2013) was utilized to prioritize and rank the design requirements. Lastly, plausible scenarios to adapt and anticipate future events. Scenario planning accounts for the effect of multiple drivers of change, trends and delivers significant possibilities, risks and opportunities.
Problem Structure: In phase 1, customer’s re uirements, design re uirements and plausible futuristic scenarios are identified and created. Findings from phase 1 are utilized as insights for the design brief. The Design brief provides a structured statement that outlines problem definition, goals, constraints, budgets and timeline.
Design and Detailing phase 2: This phase primarily concentrate on the Design Thinking approach by mapping stakeholders, visualizing the service process, data flow and wireframe.
All the stakeholders are initially identified through primary data that could directly or indirectly influence the e-commerce business model’s success to serve this purpose. The mapping of all stakeholders in the power vs. interest matrix shows stakeholders’ future strategic management.
Furthermore, the service blueprint approach illustrates multiple stakeholders’ touchpoints, customer journey and interaction between technology with supporting staff, tangible products, and intangible services. The Data Flow Diagram (DFD) is carried out for the decomposition of a process into sub-processes through connections of sources, sinks, processes and data stores.
Data flow diagrams clarify activities from the service provider’s perspective and depict data flow between various actors for smooth operations. Lastly, wireframes guide designers to establish a visual design for the new system.
Test and Implementation phase 3: For the market launch, this phase accounts for benchmarking, business model, SWOT and validation. The goal of benchmarking is to learn
from the best practice of others. It is an incremental improvement tool. The business model explains how a business creates and delivers value to customers. The deliverables in developing a business model help companies to capture, understand, design, analyze and change their business logic. Value perception and customer habits are among the most dominant hindrances to PSS implementation. Thus, customer feedback is essential for continuous improvement &
growth on a long-term basis.
The proposed service system design framework from PSS perspective model’s effectiveness was employed in a practical case of domestic plumbing services in the Indian context. This framework utility for designing and developing the service process from PSS perspective is shown and discussed in the next three subsequent sections. Section 4.2 covers phase 1 of this proposed model, i.e., PSS requirements identification and analysis with the design brief. The Phase 2 comprises PSS design and detailing as presented in section 4.3. The section 4.4 presents the PSS test and implementation, which is phase 3 of this proposed service system design from PSS perspective.
Table 4.2: Reasons for considering the methods/tools/techniques in the proposed service system framework
Research Phases Methods/Tools/Techniques Rationale
Requirements Identification &
Analysis
User Behavior Study
User behavior data is required to enhance the design activities, such as target customer identification, idea generation, and information content generation (M.-J.
Kim et al., 2018) Rough Group Analytic
Hierarch Process
The Rough AHP has the strengths in prioritizing the fuzzy, subjective, and uncertain PSS requirements (Song, 2017)
Scenario Planning
It is a strategic planning tool for improving decision making against a background of possible future environments (Derbyshire & Giovannetti, 2017) Problem Structure Design Brief
Design brief is recognized to achieve greater clarity and more predictability (Blyth and Worthington, 2001).
Defining a design brief has become an integral part of the design process (Dewulf et al., 2012).
Design & Detailing
Stakeholder Mapping
Stakeholder mapping or analysis aid in the design of specific knowledge of who has a stake and why (Ginige et al., 2018)
Service Blueprint
Service blueprinting enables accurate description and provides a map of a service system so that all the stakeholders can easily understand the business process’s operation (Wang et al., 2017) Data Flow Diagram
DFDs are used for process modelling to represent the system under development through connections of sources, sinks, processes and data stores (Wang et al., 2017)
Wireframes
I is a valuable techni ue for increasing customers’
trust, user satisfaction, purchase intention, and decision to buy
Test &
Implementation
Benchmarking
Benchmarking is a continuous process; products, services, activities, and processes could be
benchmarked; for competitive advantage, performance could be measured quantitative and qualitative; and it is about learning how to do better (McGaughey, 2002) Business Model Canvas
The deliverables in developing a business model provide companies to capture, understand, design, analyze and change their business logic (Ana Paula Bezerra Barquet et al., 2013b) (Adrodegari et al., 2017).
SWOT
Business organizers, decision-makers or managers employ SWOT analysis at the early stages of the strategic planning process and proceed towards strategy formulation (Houben et al., 1999) (Jeyaraj et al., 2012) (Namugenyi et al., 2019)
4.2 PSS Requirement Identification and Analysis of Domestic Plumbing Services –