Module Definition for Product-Service Systems

More and more manufacturing firms are transitioning to more serviced based offerings. It has been shown that a useful integrated bundle of services through a complimentary product can be a better business model than just adding support services to a product as tactical responses to customer needs. In order for companies to be able to define these integrated bundles in an efficient and systematic manner, a process is needed. In the paper we propose a new method to define modular services, ones that can be leveraged efficiently as driving entities, and which can be provided using several product offers. The service modules consist of services modularized for leveraging across several products. The method builds upon the foundations in product platform and modularity research extending it to product service systems. Further, we introduce alternative service modular platform leveraging strategies.