Product-Service Systems Engineering: State of the art and research challenges

The design and development of a Product-Service System (PSS) raises new issues since the service component introduces further requirements than traditional product engineering. Compared to physical products, services are generally under-designed and inefficiently developed. For this reason, approaches such as New Service Development, Service Design and Service Engineering have emerged during the years to support the design and development of service either as a system itself or as a constituting element of a Product-Service System. However, only Service Engineering investigates service design and development with a systematic perspective and with a seamless integration of product and service contents. The purpose of this paper is to provide a holistic conceptualisation and an up-to-date review of the literature on Service Engineering with a specific focus on its adoption in the PSS context. A critical analysis is also performed with the aim to define a research agenda and the most prominent key actions that could give directions for future research. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.