Kurtz J (2024)
Publication Language: English
Publication Type: Thesis
Publication year: 2024
URI: https://open.fau.de/handle/openfau/33508
Imagine a manufacturing firm that not only possesses the expertise to design and develop complex machines, such as assembly robots, but also has the capacity to maintain and offer additional services for these machines and analyse the operational data generated by their usage. However, the majority of manufacturing firms rely solely on their engineering capabilities to develop such complex machines, failing to acquire the necessary service and digitalisation capabilities. This results in manufacturing firms operating their product-oriented business models, despite service-oriented business models leading to higher customer centricity, increased revenue, and higher profit margins. Consequently, manufacturing firms face significant challenges in maintaining competitiveness and innovation leadership unless they undergo a transformation of their business models from product-orientation to service-orientation. This research empowers manufacturing firms to transform their product-oriented business models into service-oriented business models by presenting a novel methodology for the development of smart product-service systems. A smart product-service system is defined as a bundle of tangible products, intangible services, and digital technologies. It represents the core market proposition of servitization, which is a strategic journey undertaken by manufacturing firms to shift their business models towards service-orientation. The methodology is presented in four acts. Each of these acts makes a distinct contribution to the final methodology. First, the key pivotal factors of servitization journeys are presented and clustered into socio-technical tandems in order to facilitate an approach to this journey. Second, a smart product-service systems’ value continuum is presented as a strategic design tool to be employed during the servitization journey. Third, the micro-foundations of digitalisation capabilities are investigated in order to present the most innovative and most critical micro-foundations for servitization. Fourth, a unique innovation process design for the development of smart product-service systems is presented, prior to the presentation of the final methodology. This research is anchored in the field of information systems and the results are discussed with a socio-technical systems perspective, which is a widely known theoretical lens used to examine work systems. Furthermore, a multi-method approach is employed, utilising a design-science research approach that incorporates content analysis, a literature review, case study research, and action design research in the respective acts. This approach ensures not only relevance with the methodology to be applied by manufacturing firms in the development of smart product-service systems, but also rigour in contributing to the servitization research community and information systems field.
APA:
Kurtz, J. (2024). Empowering industry for the servitization journey: a methodology resulting from four acts (Dissertation).
MLA:
Kurtz, Julian. Empowering industry for the servitization journey: a methodology resulting from four acts. Dissertation, 2024.
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