Customer-Driven Eco-design for Technical Product-Service Systems

Technical Product-Service Systems (PSS) are a well-known concept in research and have been successfully adopted in various industries. For instance, the German manufacturing industry achieves about 20% of its revenue through services complementing physical products. Following the megatrends of sustainability, global responsibility and climate change, the demand for “green” products and services is rising. PSS bear the potential to provide a certain benefit with a lower use of resources, by performing certain tasks through services or improve the performance of products, which can lead to reduced environmental impacts. Nevertheless, this potential is not inherent in PSS and can only be ensured when PSS are designed purposefully. Hence, this article addresses this issue and proposes a new concept for eco-design of PSS with the use of a customer- and process-oriented design approach. In order to evaluate the environmental impacts of PSS, Life Cycle Assessment is used. With the proposed concept, PSS providers are able to evaluate, and optimize the environmental performance of PSS in the early stages of PSS design.