Development of an Interaction based Approach for Product Service System Implementation - An Approach Towards PSS Usability

Product Service Systems (PSS) as a combination of product and service components offer an excellent opportunity to improve the competitive position of companies on the local and global market. The current PSS approaches in literature are especially adapted to large companies. In particular, the stakeholders of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) block these approaches because of lack of usability. Because PSSs also provide many opportunities for SMEs to individualize their position on the market and to improve their relationships to their customers there is a need for a PSS framework adapted to the needs of SMEs. To provide this new concept of PSS to SMEs and also to follow the goals of usability this paper presents an interaction based approach considering aspects of current PSS frameworks. This approach of using Interaction Maps qualifies companies to apply all important steps for the implementation of a PSS. Therefore, all steps and interactions between important roles are documented and visualised in Interaction Maps. The interaction based approach takes all important stakeholders of the PSS process into account.