Continuous improvement planning through sustainability assessment of product-service systems

The paper presents a methodology for the integrated sustainability assessment of a product-service system lifecycle, with the purpose to support continuous improvement on the side both of the manufacturer and of the user. Its eight steps are an extension of ISO 14040 life cycle assessment and consider all three sustainability dimensions – economic, environmental and social – and a service perspective, using the service unit. A set of indicators for the three dimensions, aligned to the service unit concept, is proposed based on literature suggestions

International Alliance Strategies: A Case Study of the Indonesian Medical Device Industry

This study aims to investigate how the multinational corporations form alliance strategies with local businesses under the dynamic institutional environment in the Indonesian context. We used a qualitative approach with a case study of the medical device industry to examine how the institutional environment affects the choice of the strategic alliance. By collecting the qualitative data, including interviews, observations and archival data, the interpretive approach was adopted to understand social worlds from the point of view of participants. We identified five types of alliance strategies: the wholly owned subsidiary with contractual collaboration, the wholly owned subsidiary with the licence agreement, the international trade with the licence agreement, joint venture and outsourcing. There are also two main issues of the institutional environments that determine the choice of alliance strategic: the restriction for foreign companies to carry out direct selling and the new policy that introduces the electronic procurement system. This study provides evidence of the role of the institutional environment on collaboration strategies between the multinational enterprises from the developed countries and the local distributors from Indonesia. The results extend the concept of international business in the Asian context

Service Engineering as an Approach to Designing Industrial Product Service Systems

Organised by: Cranfield UniversityUnique customer solutions which integrate products and services into a high value offering have the potential to successfully differentiate from competition even prices are dictating product markets. However, companies face tremendous challenges to develop customer solutions. Service engineering is considered to be the scientific discipline which supports the design task of intangible offerings and thus a foundation for solution design. We enhance the existing body of research in service engineering by proposing to apply the systematic approach of service engineering for solution design. An architecture for services design is introduced as an initial starting point to designing service based solutions.Mori Seiki – The Machine Tool Company; BAE Systems; S4T – Support Service Solutions: Strategy and Transitio

Learning to Strategise Innovative Services: The Role of System Dynamics

A number of studies from a management perspective distinguish various types and levels of learning. The extent to which actual management decisions take into account such frameworks and lead to innovative services is limited. Increasingly, organisations address these issues by employing system dynamics modelling and simulation (SDMS) with the aim to facilitate learning about industrial service aspects and, ultimately, to offer innovative industrial services. Yet, there is no explicit research assessing the extent to which the employment of SDMS enhances learning in industrial service organisations. The goal of this paper is to investigate this. More specifically, in this paper we link SDMS aspects to critical reflective learning as an antecedent factor of innovation. We provide support for our proposed linkages with a case study, in which we illustrate the effects of SDMS on critical reflective learning within the context of an organisation, which has employed SDMS when developing industrial service strategies

Deconstructing dynamic capabilities: The role of cognitive and organizational routines in the innovation process

A better understanding of innovation processes might lead to productivity improvements. By focusing on a specific, economically relevant sector (construction) and on a specific type of firm (small to medium-sized enterprises, SMEs), the dynamic capabilities framework is extended by clarifying the roles of cognitive and organizational routines in organizational innovation processes. Insights generated from an in-depth case study of a medium-sized construction firm reveal that dynamic capabilities might diminish the relevance of an explicit innovation focus, because such capabilities have the potential to trigger emergent, incremental innovations. Accordingly, for construction SMEs, a development, rather than research, mode of innovation appears relatively more critical, as manifested in conscious cognitive routines and functional/integrative organizational routines. © 2013 Taylor & Francis

Entwicklung eines Methodenbaukastens zur Steigerung der Servicequalitaet Schlussbericht

Available from TIB Hannover: F03B1213+a / FIZ - Fachinformationszzentrum Karlsruhe / TIB - Technische InformationsbibliothekSIGLEBundesministerium fuer Wirtschaft und Arbeit (BMWA), Berlin (Germany); Arbeitsgemeinschaft Industrieller Forschungsvereinigungen 'Otto von Guericke' e.V. (AIF), Koeln (Germany)DEGerman