Product/Service System Design for Sustainability

Dear Colleagues,

Production and commercialization activities have traditionally been focused on products, while services have usually been considered as a complement to the products´ value. Hence, sustainability studies have mainly been carried out in product systems, and design for sustainability has been focused on methods to design sustainable products.

In the last years, considerable attention has been paid to service systems and product/service systems (PSS), because of their ability to meet users´ expectations by offering a more sustainable production and consumption alternative. This approach shifts the traditional delivery of functional value to end-users, as value creation is based on the access and exchange of combined goods (material in nature) and services (immaterial and consumed right away or very near the time of market transaction). From a general perspective, every product consumed needs some kind of service, and every provided service is based on the use of several products. In this way, products and services can be treated as parts of multi-compound systems denominated as PSS.

While sustainability is frequently mentioned in the context of PSS, there are few methodological guides to facilitate the integration of sustainability in the PSS design process. Adequate methods and tools to support the sustainability assessment process of the systems involved in a PSS, considering the interconnection among the environmental, economic, and social dimensions, should be proposed and implemented. Additionally, methods for the design of new systems integrating sustainability criteria or improving the sustainable performance of existent systems should be developed. The combination of PSS, business innovation, and design for sustainability is the object of this Special Issue.

References:

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Prof. Dr. José Luis Santolaya Sáenz
Assoc. Prof. Anna Maria Biedermann
Guest Editors

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• product/service systems (PSS)
• sustainable design
• sustainability assessment