Integrated Products and Services

Research Theme: Service Design

Service provision is becoming a major issue for engineering companies. New product design and production need to go hand in hand with the design of new service processes and the operation of existing products. Designers need to understand the processes that take place in service, the demands of service and life cycle approaches and their mutual dependencies.

Motivation

Companies are increasingly becoming service providers instead of mere product manufacturers, as customers devolve the operational risk of the product to the manufacturer. This leads to the demand of integrated product and service design and improved feedback of service information to the design.

Objectives

  • The overall aim of the IPAS project is to provide service knowledge and costingdata to improved design and develop processes for interaction between designand service. The aims of the EDC are to:model and improve integrated product and service design processes
  • improve existing service processes
  • adapt process capturing and planning tools to an integrated service anddesign context.

Method

The project is conducted in close collaboration with Rolls Royce and other academic partners based on two case study scenarios: The development of an integrated design and service process for a new engine; and the design of a new service process for a component of an in-service engine.

The main approach to modelling the integrated processes is Signposting, which allows to

  • model the process
  • dynamically guide design processes through state-dependent task selection
  • generate process plans as optimal process routes
  • simulate the process in order to do what-if-analyses
  • integrate analysis tools into process control and by that automate the process.

Other tools such as DSMs or the Change Prediction Method will be investigated in the context of service.

Acknowledgements

Support provided by:

  • Rolls-Royce Plc
  • Data Systems and Solutions Ltd, Adiuri Systems Ltd, Epistemics Ltd, University of Sheffield, University of Southampton, University of Aberdeen, Cambridge UTP for Design

Support for this project was provided by Rolls-Royce Plc and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI).