Service engineering framework: The adoption of simulation to design and configure Product-Service solutions

In the last years, a number of companies have undertaken a shift to a service paradigm. Apart from the benefits obtained by the so called “servitization”, many companies have also suffered the lack of methodological and systematic tools to deal with the enlargement of their Product-Service Systems (PSS) offering. The few tools nowadays available in the Service Engineering (SE) context have a reduced industrial applicability, and are mainly focused on the satisfaction of customer needs. Starting from this limitation, Pezzotta et al. (2014) defined the SErvice Engineering Methodology (SEEM) that aims at supporting companies during the engineering of a new PSS balancing the value perceived by the customer and the company sustainability. In particular, this paper aims at investigating and defining how it is possible to properly adopt Discrete Event Simulation (DES) in SEEM for the purpose of assessing the performance of a new or revised PSS offering. Two possibilities have been identified and compared through an industrial case study, and a comparison to select the best one has been conducted. The identified paradigm has been then used in a real context with the aim to better understand the main industrial implications.