Life Cycle Simulation for the design of Product-Service Systems

The present paper discusses Life Cycle Simulation (LCS) as a new approach for supporting the design of Product-Service Systems. The increased relevance of the life cycle perspective in modern society calls for more sustainable approaches to design, engineer and construct everyday products and related services. To respond to such a need, designers and engineers may have access to new methods and tools that are able to integrate the life cycle perspective in a proper way. In such a context, simulation - in its wider meaning - could play a relevant role for engineering the life cycle of a product and analyzing the related service networks. Within this context, the paper conducts a state of the art review of existing solutions implementing LCS, in order to identify common characteristics and prioritize next steps to be done for a comprehensive implementation. To this end a reference architecture is proposed. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.