A Design Methodology of Services

Service or product-service systems, as opposed to physical products, have been gaining interests of industry as well as of researchers. There are two reasons for this. First, due to increasing awareness of environmental problems, dematerialization is highlighted as a method to decouple economic growth from consumption of energy and material. It is expected to reduce environmental impacts caused by artifacts while maintaining economic performance. This is a focal shift to service and knowledge contents of products (i.e., artifacts) from products as material. Second, in almost every product category, products are mature. It is increasingly becoming difficult to further differentiate products with only costs, functions, and physical performance. One of the few areas where we can find new gains resides within the product value chain. For instance, for products that require consumable supplies such as desktop printers, business of these supplies is not negligible and has become even bigger than the business of printers themselves.