With the vision "With practice and science we support innovation teams in product-service development through new work methods, tools and processes that will empower them to create and develop new product and services for the sustainable society" the research pursue work within simulation driven product innovation.
The research is applied and considers methods and tools that will support companies to enhance their capabilities to deliver value towards customers, and society. The goal is to support companies and organisations both in being more efficient in their development (i.e. incremental improvements) and in finding totally new solutions for the market (i.e. radical innovation).
Sustainability is an important factor of the future and hence the methods and tools should support the move towards the sustainable society.
In the research a framework for analysing PSS (Mont 2004) in a systematic way is used (see picture). It is used to identify potential areas for PSS innovation and also improvement.
In this framework view, four main system elements are present, being the product/services, infrastructure and actors according to figure below (adapted from Mont 2004).
First element being product; hence optimal PSS design would require product improvement or creation. Services entails services that enriches the product experience or keep it working (marketing, sharing, leasing, financial, maintenance, upgrading, disposal etc.). Infrastructure is community or private systems (roads, communcation lines etc.) that affects usage/consumption patterns. Actor networks consists of the actors needed to deliver PSS.
Product-Service Systems (PSS) & Product Innovation (PI)
- Methods and tools for PSS development & innovation
- Radical innovation (explore) vs incremental development (exploit, Lean)
- Value driven PSS design
- Modelling and simulation of PSS
- Methods and tools for incremental product development and radical innovation
- Creative methods for concept ideation and generation
- Key performance indicators (KPI) for innovation and development work
- Simulation driven design
- Web 2.0 technolgies and tools for knowledge sharing in PSS and product innovation (wiki, blogs, folksonomies etc.)
- Design Automation (Knowledge Based Engineering, Case Based Reasoning, Design Rational Capture etc.)
- Responsible for the research is Professor Tobias C. Larsson.