Understanding of a Product/Service System Design : a Holistic Approach to Support Design for Remanufacturing

• A product/service system (PSS) facilitates remanufacturing and thus is the article’ssubject. This article presents a first quantitative analysis, through a descriptive study,of the details of a PSS design case. To do so, an example of PSS design wasconducted using a real offering in the marketplace, and this design episode wasanalyzed through protocol analysis developed further by the authors. The results ofthe analysis include reasonable hypotheses: PSS design begins with needs by andvalue for a customer, addresses primarily life cycle activities for solutions, and endsback with value. In addition, life cycle activities, which accounted for about 30% ofthe episode, were found to be given a central role within PSS design. Furthermore,reasoning about problems, which spent more than 30% of the design, seems to be anew and important type of activity in PSS design as compared to physical productdesign. This article contributes to greater understanding of PSS design process inquantitative terms and thus to developing effective support for PSS design.Knowledge about PSS enables the understanding of remanufacturing with a moreholistic perspective and thus creating an opportunity for better optimization ofremanufacturers’ activities.

Subject headings

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Annan teknik -- Övrig annan teknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Other Engineering and Technologies -- Other Engineering and Technologies not elsewhere specified (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Design for remanufacturing; Protocol analysis; Design process; Life cycle activity

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)