Title: Design for sustainability of product-service systems

Authors: Margherita Peruzzini; Michele Germani

Addresses: Università Politecnica delle Marche, via Brecce Bianche 12, 60131 Ancona, Italy ' Università Politecnica delle Marche, via Brecce Bianche 12, 60131 Ancona, Italy

Abstract: Recently, numerous manufacturing companies are moving from product to services to create new business opportunities and to increase the product value. At the same time, sustainability is a crucial aspect for industry. In this context, the research challenge is defining a structured methodology to support the design for sustainability of product-service systems (PSS). While product sustainability has been investigated during the last decades and can be assessed by several tools, sustainability of PSS is almost unexplored. This paper defines an integrated lifecycle and proposes a methodology to identify a set of sustainability indicators to compare different use scenarios and find out the best ones. It adopts a holistic approach to assess sustainability on the basis of the three main impacts: environmental, economical and social. The methodology is illustrated by means of an industrial case study proposing a new model called 'Hot water as a service' evolving traditional water heaters.

Keywords: design for sustainability; product-service lifecycle; product-service systems; PSS; extended enterprise; service engineering; environmental sustainability; economic sustainability; social sustainability; case study; water heaters; services.

DOI: 10.1504/IJASM.2014.065355

International Journal of Agile Systems and Management, 2014 Vol.7 No.3/4, pp.206 - 219

Received: 21 Oct 2013
Accepted: 01 May 2014
Published online: 31 Oct 2014 *

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