An Iterative Design Method from Products to Product Service Systems—Combining Acceptability and Sustainability for Manufacturing SMEs

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review this article. The topic is timely and interesting. It's aim is to propose a new design method to build a modular PSS (product-service system) solution that meets the major customer needs for manufacturing SMEs based on existing product and service components. This topic is related to the Sustainability journal aims and scope, beacause it is focused on enhancing sustainable development pracrices among SMEs in the manufacturing industry. 

Before publishing please address the following issues:

The abstract section did not have a proper identification of the problem, it does not tell the key of the paper, author is asked to rephrase and strengthen it. 
The paper lacks a clear research hypothesis. Please clearly articulate it and supplement with the literature review helping to elaborate this hypothesis.
The Methodology section needs improvements. The author(s) should provide a step-by-step account of their research methods. Because at the moment, the basic methodological elements of the article are not clearly stated, explained and justified.
The specific section needs to justify how the chosen methods fit with the research objectives and demonstrate similar research examples from the literature. What are the advantages of using AHP method in the case of this research?
Please add dectiptions of indicators in the formalas 1,2,3, etc. used.
References are good and up-to-date range. 
The presentation quality of the paper needs significantly mprovement. Give the article mild language revision.There is no any discussion in the article. Please provide comparative analysis of the results obtained with the existing in the literature approaches and research results.

Author Response

Reviewer 1’ Comment No. 1:

The abstract section did not have a proper identification of the problem, it does not tell the key of the paper, author is asked to rephrase and strengthen it.

Response:

Thanks for the valuable comment. In the revised manuscript, we sorted out the core problem and innovation of this paper. The problem is that the construction of PSS requires enterprises to integrate a large number of product resources and service resources. Current PSS design methods mostly propose a highly service-oriented system solution which may lead to the difficulty of applying PSS solution beyond enterprise integration capacity or waste of existing product resources. The key innovation of this paper is combining sustainability and acceptability for manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) at the early stage of PSS design. Instead of designing a new PSS solution based on customer requirements, we propose to construct PSSs with the upgrade of original system (existing product modules) in an iterative design approach.

The explanations have been added to the Abstract and attached below:

“A product-service system (PSS) is considered to be an effective concept to improve sustainability of manufacturing SMEs. However, not all PSS solutions are guaranteed to reduce waste of resources because PSS involves many resources that may be beyond the ability of manufacturing SMEs to accept or integrate. The existing PSS design methods are rarely considered from the perspective of acceptability and sustainability for manufacturing SMEs. However, existing PSS design methods mostly propose a new set of highly service-oriented PSS solutions based on customer requirements with seldom considering of sustainability and acceptance of manufacturing SMEs at the initial stage of design, which may lead to the difficulty of applying PSS solution beyond enterprise integration capacity or waste of existing product resources. Instead of building a new PSS solution, this paper proposes to treat existing product modules as the original system. The PSS solution is iteratively constructed with the upgrade of original system in a gradual way which is driven by systematic performance (this process can be suspended and repeated). Phased iterative design solution can be applied by manufacturing SMEs according to their development needs.”

 

Reviewer 1’ Comment No. 2:

The paper lacks a clear research hypothesis. Please clearly articulate it and supplement with the literature review helping to elaborate this hypothesis.

Response:

Thank you for pointing these out. In the revised manuscript, we add clear research hypothesis that the phased upgrade of existing products to PSS in an iterative manner promote acceptability and sustainability for manufacturing SMEs. We also add Introduction to elaborate the advantages of iterative PSS design method for manufacturing SMEs.

The explanations have been added to the Introduction and attached below:

“This study proposed to take the existing product modules as the original system of PSS. Manufacturing SMEs can gradually construct PSS with better performance through iteration design. The resource waste can be reduced by making full use of existing products. On the other hand, iteration design split design process into iterative design cycles can reduce prevailing uncertainties [1] and validate solutions fast with low input [2].”

The explanations have been added to the Related work and attached below:

“Michael et al. [3] proposed to meet priority customer needs through iteration in order to shorter development cycles and higher customer focus. Moreover, Iterative design can not only improve the design efficiency in the early stage, but also quickly adjust in the later stage with the change of customer needs [4]”

[1] Gartzen T.; Brambring F.; Basse F. Target-oriented Prototyping in Highly Iterative Product Development. Procedia CIRP 2016, 51, 19-23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2016.05.095

[2] 15.24. Rey J.; Apelt S.; Trauth D.; et al. Highly iterative technology planning: processing of information uncertainties in the planning of manufacturing technologies. Production Engineering 2019, 13, 361-371. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11740-019-00882-7

[3] Michael R.; Christian D.; Stefan P.; et al. Methodology for iterative system modeling in agile product development. Procedia CIRP 2021, 100, 439-444. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2021.05.101

[4] Bergs T.; Apelt S.; Beckers A.; et al. Agile ramp-up production as an advantage of highly iterative product development. Manufacturing Letters 2020, 27, 3–4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mfglet.2020.09.010

 

Reviewer 1’ Comment No. 3:

The Methodology section needs improvements. The author(s) should provide a step-by-step account of their research methods. Because at the moment, the basic methodological elements of the article are not clearly stated, explained and justified.

Response:

Thanks for the valuable comment. In the revised manuscript, we have added descriptions to each step of the design process and corresponding research methods. In addition, the reasons for adopting these methods are described in the section3.1-3.3 which is explained in the next response.

The explanations have been added to the Method and attached below:

“This paper presents the iterative design method from products to product service systems. The specific procedure is as follows: (1) Establish a mapping relationship between system performance and customer requirements and translate customer needs into system performance as the iterative driver based on AHP; (2) Rank the weight of system performance according to the weight of customer requirements which is used as a driver in iterative design; (3) Modularize existing product components as the original system based on LDfX; (4) Modularize service components through analysis of internal information flow of service components based on DSM; (5) Construct correlation ranking between each module and system performance based on PCC to determine the module priority corresponding to the system performance in the iterative process; (6) Combine product and service modules to meet each system performance gradually, and PSS solutions get iterative upgrade each time system performance is met.

The existing product is defined as the original system. The combination of product and services module in system iteration is regarded as a horizontal cross section. The system performance weighted ranking is regarded as an ordinate axis. The iterative process of PSS solution reflects a spiral iterative state, as shown in Figure 1. Manufacturing SMEs can suspend iterative process and put phased plans into the market. Moreover, this iteration can be repeated by taking the existing PSS solution as the original system when customer needs change. The original system in Figure 1 can be an existing product module or an existing PSS module solution.”

 

Reviewer 1’ Comment No. 4:

The specific section needs to justify how the chosen methods fit with the research objectives and demonstrate similar research examples from the literature.

Response:

Thanks for the comment. In the revised manuscript, we have added literatures which express the advantages of LDfX, DSM and PCC. The reasons for adopting these methods are illustrated by combining these literatures and examples.

The explanations have been added to the Section3.2 and attached below:

“The diversity of X in LDfX makes it adaptable to multiple product types and enterprise modularity requirements, which is consistent with the enterprise and product diversity in PSS design. Through a lean thinking approach, it also focuses on decreasing waste resources within the product (for all life cycle phases), which is particularly important for manufacturing SMEs [1]. Products can be modular analyzed efficiently and accurately based on LDfX which has been applied and verified by Baptista et al. on a machine tool a press-brake machine tool is given [2].

Compared with the structured analysis and design technique and quality function deployment, DSM is more efficient and accurate [3]. Sakao et al. proposed five steps of service modularization method based on DSM and proved its feasibility by the case of elevator service module modularization [4].”

The explanations have been added to the Section3.3 and attached below:

“The PCC is a linear correlation coefficient, which is used to reflect the linear correlation of two normal continuous variables [5]. The PCC is recognized as is recognized as a classical and arguably most popular tool to measure the degree of correlation between groups of data [6].”

[1] Atilano L.; Martinho A.; Silva M.A.; et al. Lean Design-for-X: Case study of a new design framework applied to an adaptive robot gripper development process. Procedia CIRP 2019, 84, 667-672. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2019.04.190

[2] Baptista A.J; Peixoto D.; Ferreira A.D.; et al. Lean Design-for-X Methodology: Integrating Modular Design, Structural Optimization and Ecodesign in a Machine Tool Case Study, Procedia CIRP 2018, 69, 722-727. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2017.12.003

[3] Avent M.S.; Weigel A.L. An application of the Design Structure Matrix to Integrated Concurrent Engineering. Acta Astronautica 2010, 66, 937-949. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2009.09.004

[4] Sakao T.; Song W.; Matschewsky J. Creating service modules for customising product/service systems by extending DSM, CIRP Annals 2017, 66, 21-24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cirp.2017.04.107

[5] Jin X.; Bo T.; He H.; et al. Semisupervised Feature Selection Based on Relevance and Redundancy Criteria. IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems 2017, 28, 1974-1984 https://doi.org/10.1109/TNNLS.2016.2562670

[6] Edelmann D.; Móri T.F.; Székely G.J.; et al. On relationships between the Pearson and the distance correlation coefficients. Statistics & Probability Letters 2021, 169, 108960

 

Reviewer 1’ Comment No. 5:

What are the advantages of using AHP method in the case of this research?

Response:

Thanks for the comment. In the revised manuscript, we have added the reasons for using AHP to rank system performance weight. AHP which is considered one of the most powerful tools for dealing with uncertainty can support stakeholder groups to decide the weight of customer value and system performance in the early stage of PSS design.

The explanations have been added to the Section3.1 and attached below:

“The transformation process from customer demand to system performance is a mapping process step by step, that is, from the target layer of customer demand satisfaction to customer value index, and finally to system performance index. In this process, the weight of customer value and system performance should be ranked by multiple stakeholders. Saaty [1] proposed that AHP provides the objective mathematics to process the inescapably subjective and personal preferences of a group in making a decision. AHP is considered one of the most popular and powerful multi-criteria decision-making methods [2-3] which is a suitable method to obtain more objectively weight of the indexes [4]. Lu et al. [5] demonstrated how a particular company can make a decision on which strategic marketing orientation to adopt based on AHP.”

[1] Saaty T.L. The seven pillars of the analytic hierarchy process Multiple Criteria Decision Making in the New Millennium, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 2001, 15-37.

[2] Mardani, A.; Jusoh, A.; Nor, K.; et al. Multiple criteria decision-making techniques and their applications – a review of the literature from 2000 to 2014. Economic Research Ekonomska Istraivanja 2015, 28, 516-571. https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677X.2015.1075139

[3] Asadabadi M.R; Zwikael O. The ambiguous proposal evaluation problem. Decision Support Systems 2020, 113359. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2020.113359

[4] Liang D.; Dai Z.; Wang M. Assessing customer satisfaction of O2O takeaway based on online reviews by integrating fuzzy comprehensive evaluation with AHP and probabilistic linguistic term sets. Applied Soft Computing 2021, 98, 106847. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asoc.2020.106847

[5] Lu, M. H.; Madu, C.N.; Kuei, C.; et al. Integrating QFD, AHP and Benchmarking in Strategic Marketing. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing 1994, 9, 41-50. https://doi.org/10.1108/08858629410053470

 

Reviewer 1’ Comment No. 6:

Please add dectiptions of indicators in the formalas 1,2,3, etc. used.

Response:

Thanks for the comment. In the revised manuscript, we have added dectiptions of indicators in the formalas 1,2,3.

The explanations have been added to the Section3.1 and attached below:

“The relative importance of SPU pair comparison in the base layer is denoted as r, and for n number of system performance (SP), the weight judgement matrix can be obtained according to the aforementioned scales:

(1)

The weighted judgment value can be obtained as follows:

, ( )

(2)

The consistency ratio is verified as follows:

	(3)
	(4)

In this equation, the mean random consistency index  can be obtained from a lookup table. When the consistency index , the consistency test is passed, and the normalized feature vector becomes the weight vector.”

 

 

Reviewer 1’ Comment No. 7

References are good and up-to-date range. The presentation quality of the paper needs significantly improvement. Give the article mild language revision.

Response:

Thanks for the comment. In the revised manuscript, we have revised the improper expression in the revised manuscript, such as:

The sentence “Manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in the sustainable development of manufacturing industry.” is revised to “Manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a crucial role in economic development and resource consumption of most regions.”

The sentence “The method used in the proposed PSS design method as shown in Figure 1.” is revised to “The design process of PSS solution reflects a spiral iterative state, as shown in Figure 1”

The sentence “Tthe weighted judgment value can be obtained as follows:” is revised to “The formula for calculating weight is expressed as follows:”

 

Reviewer 1’ Comment No. 8

There is no any discussion in the article. Please provide comparative analysis of the results obtained with the existing in the literature approaches and research results.

Response:

Thanks for the comment. We are sorry we made the mistake of naming Section 5 as the Conclusion. We have changed the title of Section 5 to Discussion. In Discussion we have compared the iterative PSS design method with existing literatures. We have discussed the advantages of this method from the perspectives of acceptability and sustainability for manufacturing SMEs.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper presents a systematic method for supporting the transition to service of existing products.
Although the method is useful and applicable, the paper presents the following shortcomings:
1) It is not clear to me the use of the word “iterative” in the title and in the paper. Indeed, the proposed method proposes a series of steps that are not repeated in an iterative way but are applied sequentially. I would like to ask the authors directly to justify this term more clearly in the paper.
2) In many parts of the paper it is mentioned that "The existing PSS design methods are rarely considered from the perspective of acceptability and sustainability for manufacturing SMEs." (lines 18-20) and "Current PSS design theories focus on customer needs analysis technologies and configuration techniques, which are lack of sustainability considerations." (lines 56-57) and “The main reason is that the existing PSS design method lack of acceptability and sustainability for manufacturing SMEs considerations.” (Lines 365-366). These statements are incorrect and denote a sloppy review of the literature by the authors. Some examples in terms of sustainability are:
• Kjaer, L. L., Pigosso, D. C., McAloone, T. C., & Birkved, M. (2018). Guidelines for evaluating the environmental performance of Product/Service-Systems through life cycle assessment. Journal of Cleaner Production, 190, 666-678.
doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.04.108
• Pigosso, D. C., & McAloone, T. C. (2016). Maturity-based approach for the development of environmentally sustainable product/service- systems. CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology, 15, 33-41. doi.org/10.1016/j.cirpj.2016.04.003
Other examples in terms of acceptability:.
• Maccioni, L., Borgianni, Y., & Pigosso, D. C. (2019). Can the choice of eco- design principles affect products’ success?. Design Science, 5.
3) In the Introduction, the concept of PSS is loosely explained, please provide a more robust definition. You can find many papers about that, for example:
• Haase, R. P., Pigosso, D. C., & McAloone, T. C. (2017). Product/service-system origins and trajectories: a systematic literature review of PSS definitions and their characteristics. Procedia Cirp, 64, 157-162. doi: 10.1016/j.procir.2017.03.053

 

In the paper, a pillar citation is [15] (which is incorrectly cited in the references) where the limitations of PSS in terms of acceptability , adoption, and market success are described. Other interesting work showing contrary evidence is listed below. I suggest discussing the differences between the results or at least mentioning that a good portion of PSSs are not failures.
• Maccioni, L., Borgianni, Y., & Pigosso, D. C. (2021). Creativity in successful eco-design supported by ten original guidelines. International Journal of Design Creativity and Innovation, 1-24.

Minor issues:
Lines 14-15, 118, 147 Please reformulate, the sentences are wrong
Figure 5 is duplicated
Figure 7, please add in the text (where the methodology is introduced) some sentence on why the matrix is not symmetrical
Figure 9, please specify in the caption the differences between blue and yellow points
Section 5, I think it should be Discussion (Conclusions is also Section 6)
Line 299, why Design with capital letters?
I also suggest to anticipate in the paper structure some concept explained (for the first time) in Section 5.

Author Response

Reviewer 2’ Comment No. 1:
It is not clear to me the use of the word “iterative” in the title and in the paper. Indeed, the proposed method proposes a series of steps that are not repeated in an iterative way but are applied sequentially. I would like to ask the authors directly to justify this term more clearly in the paper. 
Response: 
Thanks for the valuable comment. In the revised manuscript, we have added explains of the word “iterative” and how iterative is represented in the design process. Moreover, we have added literature reviews to justify the benefits of introducing iterative concepts into PSS design for manufacturing SMEs.
The explanations have been added to the Abstract and attached below:
“Instead of constructing a new PSS solution, this paper proposes to treat existing product modules as the original system. The PSS solution is iteratively constructed with the upgrade of original system in a gradual way which is driven by systematic performance (this process can be suspended and repeated). Phased iterative design solution can be applied by manufacturing SMEs according to their own development needs.”
The explanations have been added to the Method and attached below:
“The existing product is defined as the original system. The combination of product and services module in system iteration is regarded as a horizontal cross section. The system performance weighted ranking is regarded as an ordinate axis. The design process of PSS solution reflects a spiral iterative state, as shown in Figure 1. Manufacturing SMEs can suspend iterative process and put phased plans into the market. Moreover, this iteration can be repeated by taking the existing PSS solution as the original system when customer needs change. The original system in the Figure 1 can be an existing product module or an existing PSS module solution.”
The literature reviews have been added to the Introduction and Related work:
“Iteration design split design process into iterative design cycles can reduce prevailing uncertainties [1] and validate solutions fast with low input [2].
Michael et al. [3] proposed to meet priority customer needs through iteration in order to shorter development cycles and higher customer focus. Moreover, Iterative design can not only improve the design efficiency in the early stage, but also quickly adjust in the later stage with the change of customer needs [4]. Therefore, iterative design is considered in this paper to improve the acceptability for manufacturing SMEs.”
[1] Gartzen T.; Brambring F.; Basse F. Target-oriented Prototyping in Highly Iterative Product Development. Procedia CIRP 2016, 51, 19-23. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2016.05.095
[2] Rey J.; Apelt S.; Trauth D.; et al. Highly iterative technology planning: processing of information uncertainties in the planning of manufacturing technologies. Production Engineering 2019, 13, 361-371. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11740-019-00882-7
[3] Michael R.; Christian D.; Stefan P.; et al. Methodology for iterative system modeling in agile product development. Procedia CIRP 2021, 100, 439-444. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2021.05.101
[4] Bergs T.; Apelt S.; Beckers A.; et al. Agile ramp-up production as an advantage of highly iterative product development. Manufacturing Letters 2020, 27, 3–4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mfglet.2020.09.010

Reviewer 2’ Comment No. 2:
In many parts of the paper it is mentioned that "The existing PSS design methods are rarely considered from the perspective of acceptability and sustainability for manufacturing SMEs." (lines 18-20) and "Current PSS design theories focus on customer needs analysis technologies and configuration techniques, which are lack of sustainability considerations." (lines 56-57) and “The main reason is that the existing PSS design method lack of acceptability and sustainability for manufacturing SMEs considerations.” (Lines 365-366). These statements are incorrect and denote a sloppy review of the literature by the authors. Some examples in terms of sustainability are:
• Kjaer, L. L., Pigosso, D. C., McAloone, T. C., & Birkved, M. (2018). Guidelines for evaluating the environmental performance of Product/Service-Systems through life cycle assessment. Journal of Cleaner Production, 190, 666-678. doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.04.108
• Pigosso, D. C., & McAloone, T. C. (2016). Maturity-based approach for the development of environmentally sustainable product/service- systems. CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology, 15, 33-41. doi.org/10.1016/j.cirpj.2016.04.003
Other examples in terms of acceptability:.
• Maccioni, L., Borgianni, Y., & Pigosso, D. C. (2019). Can the choice of eco- design principles affect products’ success?. Design Science, 5.
Response:
Thanks for the valuable comment. In the revised manuscript, we have modified the Abstract, Introduction and Conclusion and added literature reviews to explain that the existing literature pays little attention to the combination of acceptability and sustainability in the early stage of the PSS design. The intent of this study is to fill this gap and introduce the concept of iteration into the PSS design.
The explanations have been added to the Abstract and attached below:
“However, current PSS design methods mostly construct a new set of highly service-oriented PSS solutions based on customer needs with seldom considering of combining acceptability and sustainability for manufacturing SMEs at the initial stage of design, which may lead to the difficulty of applying PSS solution beyond enterprise integration capacity or waste of existing product resources.”
The explanations have been added to the Introduction and attached below:
“Current PSS design theories are lack of comprehensive consideration of combining acceptability and sustainability for manufacturing SMEs. Based on these theories, enterprises often get a highly service-oriented new system solution, which means that manufacturing SMEs need to waste a lot of existing product resources. Moreover, the highly service-oriented system solution is costly and risky for manufacturing SMEs which have limited resources and serviceability [1].”
The literature reviews have been added to the Related work and attached below:
“Pieroni et al. [2] proposed the adoption of PSS strategies appears as a promising solution. However, practical application of PSS sustainable approaches is still limited. Kjaer et al. [3] proposed that PSS are not necessarily environmentally benign compared to conventional systems and integrate life cycle assessment into the environmental evaluation of PSS. This method of adding sustainability evaluation at the later stage of design is difficult to have a positive impact on the PSS solution itself. Pigosso & McAloone [4] proposed to integrate PSS best practices with ecodesign best practices in order to ensure increased environmental performance. However, this method guarantees sustainability, not success for manufacturing SMEs. Maccioni et al. [5] constructed the correlations between specific eco-design principles and success through an exploratory study. This paper mainly discusses the relationship between sustainability and customer behavior (interact with and choose to pay for). Enterprises that are important stakeholders in the PSS design are not taken into account.”
The explanations have been added to the Conclusion and attached below:
“Current PSS design theories focus on customer needs analysis technologies and configuration techniques through parallel process. Optimizing the PSS design process by combining acceptability and sustainability for manufacturing SMEs is overlooked.”
[1] Rondini A.; Matschewsky J.; Pezzotta G.; et al. A simplified approach towards customer and provider value in PSS for small and medium-sized enterprises, Procedia CIRP 2018, 73, 61-66, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2018.03.330
[2] Pieroni M.; Marques C.; Moraes R.N.; et al. PSS Design Process Models: Are They Sustainability-oriented? Procedia CIRP 2017, 64, 67-72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2017.03.040
[3] Kjaer L.L.; Pigosso D.C.; McAloone T.C.; et al. Guidelines for evaluating the environmental performance of Product/Service-Systems through life cycle assessment. Journal of Cleaner Production 2018, 190, 666-678. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.04.108
[4] Pigosso D.C.; McAloone T.C. Maturity-based approach for the development of environmentally sustainable product/service- systems. CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology 2016, 15, 33-41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cirpj.2016.04.003
[5] Maccioni L.; Borgianni Y.; Pigosso D.C. Can the choice of eco- design principles affect products’ success? Design Science 2019, 5. https://doi.org/10.1017/dsj.2019.24

Reviewer 2’ Comment No. 3:
In the Introduction, the concept of PSS is loosely explained, please provide a more robust definition. You can find many papers about that, for example: 
• Haase, R. P., Pigosso, D. C., & McAloone, T. C. (2017). Product/service-system origins and trajectories: a systematic literature review of PSS definitions and their characteristics. Procedia Cirp, 64, 157-162. doi: 10.1016/j.procir.2017.03.053
Response:
Thank you for pointing this out. In the revised manuscript, we have changed the literature and provided a more robust definition of PSS.
The explanations have been added to the Introduction and attached below:
“The PSS define proposed by Mont “PSS is a system of products, services, supporting networks and infrastructure that is designed to be: competitive, satisfy customer needs and have a lower environmental impact than traditional business models” is one of the most cited PSS define [1-2]. Based on previous literature analysis, PSSs which consist of product and service elements can lead to an increase in customer satisfaction and customer value. Moreover, PSSs can reduce the environmental impact in connection with delivery of customer needs and offer a new business model which includes shifts in product ownership [2].”
[1] Mont O.K. Clarifying the concept of product–service system. J. Clean. Prod 2002, 10, 237-245. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0959-6526(01)00039-7
[2] Haase R.P.; Pigosso D.C.; McAloone T.C. Product/service-system origins and trajectories: a systematic literature review of PSS definitions and their characteristics. Procedia Cirp 2017, 64, 157-162. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2017.03.053

Reviewer 2’ Comment No. 4:
In the paper, a pillar citation is [15] (which is incorrectly cited in the references) where the limitations of PSS in terms of acceptability , adoption, and market success are described. Other interesting work showing contrary evidence is listed below. I suggest discussing the differences between the results or at least mentioning that a good portion of PSSs are not failures. 
• Maccioni, L., Borgianni, Y., & Pigosso, D. C. (2021). Creativity in successful eco-design supported by ten original guidelines. International Journal of Design Creativity and Innovation, 1-24.
Response:
Thanks for the comment. The point we want to make is that it is difficult to accept PSS for manufacturing SMEs because of a number of challenges, although it is more sustainable, resource-efficient and also strengthen long-term customer relationships. In the revised manuscript, we reviewed the literature and modified the description of the citation. Moreover, we have added literatures of PSS globalization trend and successful case. We also have added literatures of relevant evidence that PSS is difficult to be accepted by Manufacturing SMEs.
The explanations have been added to the Introduction and attached below:
“In the modern global economy, the PSS strategy is increasingly popular among manufacturers [1], including IBM (from hardware to software supplier and then to service provider), Apple (from personal computer manufacturer to high-end consumer electronics and service provider), and Monetti S.P.A of Italy (from refrigerator manufacturer to integrated service provider of cold chain logistics based on refrigerator manufacturing) [2]. Although PSSs enhance customer acceptance and market success [3], manufacturing SMEs faces a number of challenges in servitization transition [4-6]. These unexpected difficulties are known as Service Paradox. It often proves more difficult than expected to recoup the expected level of return from services [6]. Moreover, present scientific approaches are generally focusing on case studies based on large companies [7].”
[1] Xu Z, Ming X, Song W, Li M, He L and Li X. Towards a new framework: Understanding and managing the supply chain for product-service systems. Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part B: Journal of Engineering Manufacture 2014, 228, 1642–1652. https://doi.org/10.1177/0954405414521189
[2] Geng X.; Chu X.; Xue D.; et al. A systematic decision-making approach for the optimal product–service system planning. Expert Systems with Applications 2011, 38, 11849–11858. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2011.03.075
[3] Maccioni L.; Borgianni Y.; Pigosso D.C.A. Creativity in successful eco-design supported by ten original guidelines. International Journal of Design Creativity and Innovation 2021, 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/21650349.2021.1965033
[4] Michalik A.; Besenfelder C.; Henke M. Servitization of Small- and Medium-Sized Manufacturing Enterprises: Facing Barriers through the Dortmund Management Model. IFAC-PapersOnLine 2019, 52, 2326-2331. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ifacol.2019.11.553 
[5] Neely, A. Exploring the financial consequences of the servitization of manufacturing. Operations Management Research 2018, 1, 103–118. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12063-009-0015-5
[6] Jiang, S.F; Feng D, Lu C.F. A Sustainable Innovation—Additional Services for Products Based on Personalised Customer Value. Sustainability, 2019, 11, 6. https://doi.org/10.3390/su11061763
[7] Gebauer H.; Fleisch E.; Friedli T. Overcoming the Service Paradox in Manufacturing Companies. European Management Journal 2005, 23, 14-26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2004.12.006

Reviewer 2’ Comment No. 5:
Minor issues:
Lines 14-15, 118, 147 Please reformulate, the sentences are wrong
Response:
Thank you for pointing this out. In the revised manuscript, we have revised these sentences.
The sentence “Manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in the sustainable development of manufacturing industry.” is revised to “Manufacturing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play a crucial role in economic development and resource consumption of most regions.”
The sentence “The method used in the proposed PSS design method as shown in Figure 1.” is revised to “The design process of PSS solution reflects a spiral iterative state, as shown in Figure 1”
The sentence “Tthe weighted judgment value can be obtained as follows:” is revised to “The formula for calculating weight is expressed as follows:”

Reviewer 2’ Comment No. 6:
Figure 5 is duplicated
Response:
Thank you for pointing this out. In the revised manuscript, we have removed the duplicate figure.

Reviewer 2’ Comment No. 7:
Figure 7, please add in the text (where the methodology is introduced) some sentence on why the matrix is not symmetrical
Response:
Thank you for pointing this out. In the revised manuscript, we have added explanations on why the matrix is not symmetrical in DSM.
The explanations have been added to the Section3.2 and attached below:
“Binary interactions (input or output) between different components were created based on DSM. There will be asymmetry in the matrix when there is only information flowing from A to B and no information flowing from B to A in the information exchange.”

Reviewer 2’ Comment No. 8:
Figure 9, please specify in the caption the differences between blue and yellow points
Response:
Thank you for pointing this out. In the revised manuscript, we have added descriptions of blue and yellow points to the Figure 9. The blue points represent product modules. The yellow points represent service modules.

Reviewer 2’ Comment No. 9:
Section 5, I think it should be Discussion (Conclusions is also Section 6)
Response:
Thanks for the comment. We are sorry we made the mistake of naming Section 5 as the Conclusion. We have changed the title of Section 5 to Discussion.

Reviewer 2’ Comment No. 10:
Line 299, why Design with capital letters?
Response:
Thank you for pointing this out. In the revised manuscript, we have revised “DESIGN” into “design”.

Reviewer 2’ Comment No. 11:
I also suggest to anticipate in the paper structure some concept explained (for the first time) in Section 5. 
Response:
Thank you for pointing this out. In the revised manuscript, we have deleted the word "feasibility" in section 5 and replaced it with "acceptability" to avoid misunderstanding. We also have added explanations of AHP, LDfX, DSM and PCC.
The explanations have been added to the Section3.1 and attached below:
“The transformation process from customer needs to system performance is a mapping process step by step, that is, from the target layer of customer demand satisfaction to customer value index, and finally to system performance index. In this process, the weight of customer value and system performance should be ranked by multiple stakeholders. Saaty [1] proposed that AHP provides the objective mathematics to process the inescapably subjective and personal preferences of a group in making a decision. AHP is considered one of the most popular and powerful multi-criteria decision-making method [2-3] which is a suitable method to obtain more objectively weight of the indexes [4]. Lu et al. [5] demonstrated how a particular company can make a decision on which strategic marketing orientation to adopt based on AHP.”
The explanations have been added to the Section3.2 and attached below:
“The diversity of X in LDfX makes it adaptable to multiple product types and enterprise modularity requirements, which is consistent with the enterprise and product diversity in PSS design. Through a lean thinking approach, it also focuses on decreasing waste resources within the product (for all life cycle phases), which is particularly important for manufacturing SMEs [6]. Products can be modular analyzed efficiently and accurately based on LDfX which has been applied and verified by Baptista et al. on a machine tool a press-brake machine tool is given [7].
Compared with the Structured Analysis and Design Technique and Quality Function Deployment, DSM is more efficient and accurate [8]. Sakao et al. proposed five steps of service modularization method based on DSM and proved its feasibility by the case of elevator service module modularization [9].”
The explanations have been added to the Section3.3 and attached below:
“The PCC is a linear correlation coefficient, which is used to reflect the linear correlation of two normal continuous variables [10]. The PCC is recognized as is recognized as a classical and arguably most popular tool to measure the degree of correlation between groups of data [11].” 
[1] Saaty T.L. The seven pillars of the analytic hierarchy process Multiple Criteria Decision Making in the New Millennium, Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg 2001, 15-37.
[2] Mardani, A.; Jusoh, A.; Nor, K.; et al. Multiple criteria decision-making techniques and their applications – a review of the literature from 2000 to 2014. Economic Research Ekonomska Istraivanja 2015, 28, 516-571. https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677X.2015.1075139
[3] Asadabadi M.R; Zwikael O. The ambiguous proposal evaluation problem. Decision Support Systems 2020, 113359. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2020.113359
[4] Liang D.; Dai Z.; Wang M. Assessing customer satisfaction of O2O takeaway based on online reviews by integrating fuzzy comprehensive evaluation with AHP and probabilistic linguistic term sets. Applied Soft Computing 2021, 98, 106847. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asoc.2020.106847
[5] Lu, M. H.; Madu, C.N.; Kuei, C.; et al. Integrating QFD, AHP and Benchmarking in Strategic Marketing. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing 1994, 9, 41-50. https://doi.org/10.1108/08858629410053470
[6] Atilano L.; Martinho A.; Silva M.A.; et al. Lean Design-for-X: Case study of a new design framework applied to an adaptive robot gripper development process. Procedia CIRP 2019, 84, 667-672. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2019.04.190
[7] Baptista A.J; Peixoto D.; Ferreira A.D.; et al. Lean Design-for-X Methodology: Integrating Modular Design, Structural Optimization and Ecodesign in a Machine Tool Case Study, Procedia CIRP 2018, 69, 722-727. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2017.12.003
[8] Avent M.S.; Weigel A.L. An application of the Design Structure Matrix to Integrated Concurrent Engineering. Acta Astronautica 2010, 66, 937-949. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actaastro.2009.09.004
[9] Sakao T.; Song W.; Matschewsky J. Creating service modules for customising product/service systems by extending DSM, CIRP Annals 2017, 66, 21-24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cirp.2017.04.107
[10] Jin X.; Bo T.; He H.; et al. Semisupervised Feature Selection Based on Relevance and Redundancy Criteria. IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems 2017, 28, 1974-1984 https://doi.org/10.1109/TNNLS.2016.2562670
[11] Edelmann D.; Móri T.F.; Székely G.J.; et al. On relationships between the Pearson and the distance correlation coefficients. Statistics & Probability Letters 2021, 169, 108960

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript is ready to be published

Author Response

Dear reviewer,

Thanks for the comment.

 

Sincerely yours,
The Authors