Title: Defining product-service network configurations and location roles: a current and future state analysis framework for international engineering operations

Authors: Tomás Seosamh Harrington; Jagjit Singh Srai

Addresses: Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB3 0FS, UK ' Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, CB3 0FS, UK

Abstract: Many manufacturing firms have developed a service dimension to their product portfolio. In response to this growing trend of servitisation, organisations, often involved in complex, long-lifecycle product-service system (PSS) provision, need to reconfigure their global engineering networks to support integrated PSS offerings. Drawing on parallel concepts in 'production' networks, the idea of 'location role' now becomes increasingly complex, in terms of service delivery. As new markets develop, locations in a specific region may need to grow/adapt engineering service 'competencies' along the value chain, from design and build to support and service, in order to serve future location-specific requirements and, potentially, those requirements of the overall network. The purpose of this paper is to advance understanding of how best to design complex multi-organisational engineering service networks, through extension of the 'production' network location role concept to a PSS context, capturing both traditional engineering 'design and build' and engineering 'service' requirements.

Keywords: international engineering operations; network configuration archetypes; location roles; engineering service capabilities; integrated product-service systems; ConOps; concept of operations; global engineering operations; manufacturing industry; services; servitisation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPD.2012.052103

International Journal of Product Development, 2012 Vol.17 No.3/4, pp.228 - 253

Published online: 30 Dec 2014 *

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