934
KN
OW
LEDGE SHARIN
G AN
D REUSE IN
PRODUCT-SERVICE SYSTEM
S W
ITH A PRODUCT LIFECYCLE PERSPECTIVE
Yan Xin
KNOWLEDGE SHARING AND REUSE IN PRODUCT-
SERVICE SYSTEMS WITH A PRODUCT LIFECYCLE
PERSPECTIVE
Yan Xin
ACTA UNIVERSITATIS LAPPEENRANTAENSIS 934
Yan Xin
KNOWLEDGE SHARING AND REUSE IN PRODUCT-
SERVICE SYSTEMS WITH A PRODUCT LIFECYCLE
PERSPECTIVE
Acta Universitatis
Lappeenrantaensis 934
Dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Science (Technology) to be presented
with due permission for public examination and criticism in the Auditorium
1314 at Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology LUT, Lappeenranta,
Finland on the 1st of December, 2020, at noon.
Supervisors Professor Ville Ojanen
LUT School of Engineering Science
Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology LUT
Finland
Professor Janne Huiskonen
LUT School of Engineering Science
Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology LUT
Finland
Reviewers Associate Professor (tenure track) Tuomas Ahola
Department of Industrial Management
Faculty of Management and Business
Tampere University
Finland
Associate Professor (tenured) Congcong Zheng
Department of Management
College of Business Administration
San Diego State University
United States
Opponents Associate Professor Yang Liu
Department of Management and Engineering
Linköping University
Sweden
Senior Research Fellow Hannele Lampela
Department of Industrial Engineering and Management
University of Oulu
Finland
ISBN 978-952-335-588-0
ISBN 978-952-335-589-7 (PDF)
ISSN-L 1456-4491
ISSN 1456-4491
Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology LUT
LUT University Press 2020
Abstract
Yan Xin
Knowledge sharing and reuse in product-service systems with a product lifecycle
perspective
Lappeenranta 2020
133 pages
Acta Universitatis Lappeenrantaensis 934
Diss. Lappeenranta-Lahti University of Technology LUT
ISBN 978-952-335-588-0, ISBN 978-952-335-589-7(PDF), ISSN-L 1456-4491, ISSN
1456-4491
Contemporary phenomena such as sustainability, and emerging digital technologies and
ecosystems shift the basis of competition from the functionality of a discrete product to
the performance of the broader product system throughout the product lifecycle (PLC),
and a single firm is only one of actors among many. With this trend, product-service
systems (PSS) integrating bundles of products and services to create customer utility and
generate value have become an emerging issue in both academia and industry, and have
been identified as one of the most effective instruments for moving society towards
sustainability. In the sustainability-oriented PSS scenario, the requirements of integrating
diverse knowledge relating to economic, social and environmental considerations across
the entire product lifecycle inherently makes knowledge and its management more crucial
and challenging than ever. Identified as key processes for successful knowledge
management, knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse have been investigated in research
articles for decades. However, few studies examine them together, especially in the PSS
context from a PLC perspective. Especially, when examining PLC beginning-of-life
(BOL), middle-of-life (MOL), and end-of-life (EOL) phases, the existing studies have
mainly focused on the BOL phase, and the studies on the MOL phase have not been
comprehensive. In addition, the opportunities and challenges brought by digitalization
transformation should be stressed as they have shaped the sharing and reuse behavior.
The purpose of this study is to further investigate knowledge sharing and reuse as well as
the impact of digitalization on them in the PSS context from a PLC perspective. In
particular, knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse at both the beginning-of-life
(represented by R&D, purchasing, and production) and the middle-of-life (represented by
logistics, customer service, and sales) phases are the focus. Combining systematic
literature reviews with multiple case studies and a supplementary questionnaire survey,
this dissertation enriches the PSS research and refines the knowledge management
research. The systematic literature review specifically focusing on empirical PSS studies
contributes to product-service systems (PSS) development by complementing the existing
PSS review studies to provide possible directions or considerations for future empirical
PSS research. Empirically, the current study not only investigates knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse together in the PSS context, but also distinguishes them by focusing on
knowledge sharing from the knowledge sender’s perspective and knowledge reuse from
the knowledge receiver’s perspective. The findings of this study provide a more fine-
grained understanding of knowledge sharing and reuse practice in the PSS context from
different levels of analysis, and across different PLC phases and their corresponding sub-
phases. They figure out the similarities and differences of knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse practice/strategies and the corresponding mechanisms in different PLC
phases (i.e., BOL and MOL). By separating people-related factors and mechanism-
selection-related factors, the findings enhance the understanding of the influencing
factors surrounding knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse. The findings also identify
benefits and challenges of digitalization in the above-mentioned practices. Digitalization
facilitates knowledge sharing and reuse by facilitating standardization, by providing a
comprehensive knowledge repository and convenient knowledge sharing platform, and
by reducing the associated money and time cost. The challenges are issues related to data
security, large investments, and timely maintenance. In addition to the contribution to the
relevant research fields, this dissertation highlights some managerial implications on
promoting knowledge sharing/reuse in the PSS context and from a PSS provider’s
perspective, including identifying the knowledge requirements in different PLC phases
and sub-phases, advocating standardization, emphasizing the importance of competent
people/personnel, strengthening external collaboration, matching the knowledge
shared/sourced and the mechanism used, and investing in both human resource and digital
technology/systems.
Keywords: product-service systems, product lifecycle, knowledge reuse, knowledge
sharing, digitalization
Acknowledgements
Completing this doctoral thesis has been an arduous but rewarding process with moments
of enlightenment and frustration. It would not have been possible without the help from
those wise and wonderful people who supported me throughout this long and challenging
journey. I would like to express my appreciation to all of them.
I owe my deepest gratitude to my supervisors Professor Ville Ojanen and Professor Janne
Huiskonen for their support and guidance on this journey. Professor Ville Ojanen guided
me throughout the whole period of this thesis project with his patience, understanding,
and constant encouragement. He was always there to support and motivate me. I have
learned a great deal from the fruitful discussions with him. Professor Janne Huiskonen
led me to the research field of product-service systems and provided valuable support for
this thesis.
I would like to thank the distinguished reviewers of the thesis, Associate Professor
Tuomas Ahola and Associate Professor Congcong Zheng. They have invested their time
and provided constructive feedback and insightful suggestions to improve the thesis in its
final stages.
I want to express my gratitude to my fellow colleagues at LUT University for making my
PhD journey less lonely and more enjoyable. Particularly, I want to thank the innovation
management team members. The meetings, discussions, and social events with you not
only enriched my research field, but also made my life in Lappeenranta fun. Niko and
Kajal, thank you for sharing the research ideas and all the fun activities there. Nina, Kirsi,
and Antero, thank you for the encouragement when I felt confused during the journey.
Lea, Jorma and Kalle, thank you for helping me adapt to the life and culture in Finland. I
would also like to thank Professor Leonid Chechurin for his support and guidance on the
project ‘OPENING THE EASTERN DOOR - Towards International Innovation
Ecosystem in Higher Education’ and for his kindness support on the participation in the
CEPHEI project. The experiences in the projects allowed me to learn valuable knowledge
and skills for project application and organization.
In addition, I would like to thank the administrative and support staff at the LUT
University for their reliable and professional assistance–Petri Hautaniemi, Tarja
Nikkinen, Eva Kekki, Terttu Hynynen, Anu Honkanen, Sari Damsten, Saara Merritt, and
Jenni Larsson.
I am also thankful for the financial support I have received from the university and the
facilities provided in the LUT University, which was essential to the completion of this
thesis.
Many thanks also to out to all the managers and experts in the case companies who I
interviewed. Thank you very much for investing the time and sharing your ideas regarding
the thesis topic. In particular, thanks also go out to my life-long friend Yan Zhang for
providing me with the opportunities to access the case companies.
Last but not least, a special word of gratitude to my family for their support and
encouragement. Nothing can repay the love and silent support of my dearest parents.
Everything I have achieved is a tribute to you both. Thanks to my beloved brother for his
support all along. I started living in a student dormitory when I was fifteen and left my
hometown when I was eighteen. I wish I could spend more time with you. Thank you,
Lingxin, my daughter, you are the main sources of my motivation, inspiration, and
happiness. The final but the greatest ‘thank you’ goes to my dear husband Xiangrui, my
best friend and perfect partner in life. Your understanding, support, encouragement, and
enduring love made this thesis possible. This journey is more meaningful because of you!
Yan Xin
October 2020
Lappeenranta, Finland
The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing.
- Walt Disney
Contents
Abstract
Acknowledgements
Contents
List of publications 11
Nomenclature 13
1 Introduction 15
1.1 Research background and motivation ..................................................... 15
1.2 Research gaps .......................................................................................... 16
1.3 Research objectives, research questions, and scope of the study ............ 19
1.4 Summary of the key concepts ................................................................. 23
1.5 Outline of the thesis ................................................................................. 26
2 Theoretical background 29
2.1 Product service systems ........................................................................... 29
2.1.1 PSS definitions and categorizations ............................................ 29
2.1.2 The importance and benefits of PSS ........................................... 31
2.1.3 Product lifecycle and its management in PSS ............................. 33
2.1.4 Digitalization and product lifecycle management in PSS ........... 36
2.1.5 Summary of the extant studies on PSS ....................................... 37
2.2 Knowledge management in the PSS context in the digital era ................ 40
2.2.1 Knowledge and its management as the basis of competitive
advantage .................................................................................... 40
2.2.2 Knowledge as a concept and knowledge management strategy . 42
2.2.3 Knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse – definition and
mechanisms ................................................................................. 47
2.2.4 Knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse – influencing factors and
mechanisms ................................................................................. 51
2.2.5 Knowledge sharing and reuse in PSS in the digital era .............. 56
3 Methodology and research design 61
3.1 Methodological considerations ................................................................ 61
3.2 Research approach and methodological choices ..................................... 65
3.2.1 Systematic literature review ........................................................ 68
3.2.2 Multiple case study ..................................................................... 71
3.2.3 Questionnaire survey ................................................................... 75
3.3 Quality of the research ............................................................................ 78
4 Summary of the publications and results 81
4.1 Publication I: Empirical studies on product-service systems – A systematic
literature review ....................................................................................... 82
4.1.1 Background and objectives ......................................................... 82
4.1.2 Main findings .............................................................................. 82
4.1.3 Main contributions ...................................................................... 83
4.2 Publication II: The impact of digitalization on product lifecycle
management: How to deal with it? .......................................................... 83
4.2.1 Background and objectives ......................................................... 83
4.2.2 Main findings .............................................................................. 83
4.2.3 Main contributions ...................................................................... 84
4.3 Publication III: Knowledge management in product-service systems – A
product lifecycle perspective ................................................................... 85
4.3.1 Background and objectives ......................................................... 85
4.3.2 Main findings .............................................................................. 85
4.3.3 Main contributions ...................................................................... 86
4.4 Publication IV: Dealing with knowledge management practices in
different product lifecycle phases within product-service ...................... 87
4.4.1 Background and objectives ......................................................... 87
4.4.2 Main findings .............................................................................. 88
4.4.3 Main contributions ...................................................................... 89
4.5 Publication V: Sharing and reusing knowledge for innovation and
competitiveness in PSS ........................................................................... 90
4.5.1 Background and objectives ......................................................... 90
4.5.2 Main findings .............................................................................. 91
4.5.3 Main contributions ...................................................................... 92
5 Discussion and conclusions 95
5.1 Answering the research questions ........................................................... 95
5.2 Contribution ........................................................................................... 100
5.2.1 Theoretical contributions .......................................................... 101
5.2.2 Managerial implications ............................................................ 104
5.3 Limitation and suggestions for future research ..................................... 107
References 109
Publications
11
List of publications
This thesis is based on five individual publications that are included in Part II. The
publications are listed below, together with the author’s contribution to each publication.
The rights have been granted by the publishers to include the papers in the thesis.
PUBLICATION I
Xin, Y., Ojanen, V., and Huiskonen, J. (2017). Empirical studies on product-service
systems: A systematic literature review. Procedia CIRP, 64, pp. 399-404. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2017.03.054
Yan Xin was the principle author and investigator in the paper. The author designed the
research plan in cooperation with the co-authors. The author collected and analyzed the
data and wrote the paper. The paper was jointly revised in cooperation with the co-
authors. The paper was published following a double-blinded review of the full paper.
PUBLICATION II
Xin, Y. and Ojanen, V. (2017). The impact of digitalization on product lifecycle
management: How to deal with it?. Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on
Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management (IEEM). 10-13 Dec 2017,
Singapore. DOI: 10.1109/IEEM.2017.8290062
Yan Xin was the principle author and investigator in the paper. The author designed the
research plan in cooperation with the co-author. The author was responsible for data
collection and analysis, and for writing the paper. The review process was done in
collaboration with the co-author. The paper was presented at the conference and was
accepted for publication in the conference proceedings based on a double-blinded review
of the full paper.
PUBLICATION III
Xin, Y., Ojanen, V., and Huiskonen, J. (2018). Knowledge management in product-
service systems - A product lifecycle perspective. Procedia CIRP, 73, pp. 203-209. DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2018.03.306
Yan Xin was the principle author and investigator in the paper. The author designed the
research plan, collected and analyzed the data, and wrote the paper. The paper was jointly
revised in cooperation with the co-authors. The paper was published following a double-
blinded review of the full paper.
PUBLICATION IV
List of publications 12
Xin, Y., Ojanen, V., and Huiskonen, J. (2019). Dealing with knowledge management
practices in different lifecycle phases within product-service systems. Procedia CIRP, 83,
pp. 111-117. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.procir.2019.02.132
Yan Xin was the principle author and investigator in the paper. The author designed the
research plan in cooperation with the co-authors. The interview guidelines were jointly
designed in cooperation with the first co-author. Overall, the author was responsible for
data collection and analysis, and writing the paper. The paper was finalized and revised
in cooperation with the co-authors. The paper was published following a double-blinded
review of the full paper.
PUBLICATION V
Xin, Y., Ojanen, V., and Huiskonen, J. (2020). Sharing and reusing knowledge for
innovation and competitiveness in PSS. Proceedings of the XXXI ISPIM Innovation
Conference – Innovating Our Common Future, 7-10 June 2020. Berlin, Germany
(virtual).
Yan Xin was the principle author and investigator in the paper. The author designed the
research plan in cooperation with the co-authors. The interview guidelines were jointly
designed in cooperation with the first co-author. Overall, the author was responsible for
survey design, data collection and analysis, and writing the paper. The paper was jointly
revised in cooperation with the co-authors. The paper was presented at the conference by
the author and was accepted for the conference proceedings based on a double-blinded
review of the extended abstract.
13
Nomenclature
BOL beginning-of-life
CL2M Closed Loop Lifecycle Management
EOL end-of-life
EU European Union
ICT information and communications technology
IoT Internet of Things
KBV knowledge-based view
MAO Motivation-Ability-Opportunity
MOL middle-of-life
NGOs non-governmental organizations
PLC product lifecycle
PLM product lifecycle management
PSS product-service systems
DEOM design, evaluation, and operation methods
R&D research and development
RBV resource-based view
SQ sub-question
TAM Technology Acceptance Model
15
1 Introduction
1.1 Research background and motivation
Severe challenges such as shrinking natural resources, climate change, deforestation,
biodiversity loss, food security, and deterioration of the natural environment are making
people more aware of sustainability. Some of these challenges are issues of global
survival that must be stressed on global and national levels. Based on the principles of
sustainable development, governments set development policies to promote economic
growth, social development, and environmental protection. For instance, Finnish
development policy strives to concentrate on fields such as forest and water management,
in addition to renewable energy, where it has cutting-edge expertise and carries out some
of its objectives in cooperation with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) (United
Nations, 2008). At the corporate level, sustainability has been integrated into strategies
for manufacturing companies due to the increasing legal, competitive and monetary
pressures that have been raised by these severe challenges and imposed by various
stakeholders, including, for example, suppliers, investors and governmental authorities
(European Commission, 2011; Lozano, 2013; Maxwell and van der Vorst, 2003). The
focus has shifted from purely producing goods with certain functionalities towards
providing material or intangible value to the customer (Sundin, 2009). With this trend,
product-service systems (PSS) have become an emerging issue in both academia and
industry (i.e., Goedkoop, van Halen, te Riele, and Rommens, 1999; Tukker, 2004 and
2015; Vandermerwe and Rada, 1988).
Originating from Europe, the focal idea of PSS is to deliver value to the customer and
fulfill their needs by providing an integrated bundle of tangible products and intangible
services (i.e. Boehm and Thomas, 2013; Roy and Baxter, 2009; Tukker and Tischner,
2006). PSS has the potential to embrace sustainability, especially environmental
sustainability due to the possibility to reduce overall resource consumption through better
utilization and maintenance of resources and better adaptation to changing market
conditions and customer needs (Aurich, Fuchs, and Wagenknecht, 2006; Baines,
Lightfoot, Evans, Neely, Greenough, and Wilson, 2007; Roy and Baxter, 2009; Tukker,
2004). In the PSS context, multiple stakeholders with certain responsibilities are
integrated to create extended value-creation networks (Mert, Herder, Menck, and Aurich,
2016) throughout the entire product lifecycle (PLC). Companies, especially PSS
providers, are more PLC-oriented because all the relevant stakeholders must collaborate
to provide customer solutions, i.e., an integrated bundle of products and services (Aurich
et al., 2006). Through cooperation, the stakeholders’ awareness of sustainability
consciousness is increasing as well because they share knowledge and information during
the process (Dal Lago, Corti, and Wellsandt, 2017).
Knowledge is considered as a vital strategic resource and source of the firm’s competitive
advantage according to the knowledge-based view (KBV) of the firm (Grant, 1996; Kogut
and Zander, 1992; Spender, 1996). In particular, the tacit and sticky nature of firm-
1 Introduction 16
specific knowledge guards against imitation from the competitors, which helps the
company build a competitive advantage (Nonaka, 1994; Szulanski, 1996). Nevertheless,
knowledge is valuable only if it is managed in the right way (Hislop, 2009). As an
umbrella term, knowledge management refers to any managerial processes and practice
that focuses on effective and efficient means of leveraging knowledge resources to
enhance performance and to create a competitive advantage (i.e., Alavi and Leidner,
2001; Plessis, 2015; Swan, Newell, Scarbrough and Hislop, 1999). However, efficient
knowledge management is difficult (Gloet and Terziovski, 2004). Although companies
in various industries have invested in knowledge management initiatives and gained
benefits, many companies are still struggling to reap the value from knowledge
management (Newell, Scarbrough, and Swan, 2001; Rao, 2012). The requirements to
integrate diverse knowledge relating to economic, social, and environmental
considerations across the entire product lifecycle (PLC) inherently make knowledge and
its management even more crucial and challenging to companies in the PSS context
(Adams, Jeanrenaud, Bessant, Denyer, and Overy, 2016).
The above-mentioned perspectives motivated the author to address the challenges of
knowledge management in the PSS context from a PLC perspective to help cope with
these challenges. This section identifies the research gaps that will be addressed by this
thesis. After that, the research objectives, research questions, and scope of the study are
presented. Finally, the key concepts used will be elaborated and the overall outline of the
thesis will be presented.
1.2 Research gaps
Studies focusing on product-service systems (PSS) have become more prolific since the
late 1990s due to the potential of PSS to generate ecological and economic benefits
(Goedkoop et al., 1999; Reim, Parida, and Örtqvist, 2015; Tukker, 2015). These studies
have been reviewed from different perspectives, including: the clarification of PSS
concepts and features as well as potential benefits and barriers to PSS adoption in the
manufacturing context (Baines et al., 2007), overviews of the PSS design, evaluation, and
operation methodologies (Qu, Yu, Chen, Chu, and Tian, 2016; Vasantha, Roy, Lelah, and
Brissaud, 2012), contribution to knowledge production in manufacturing contexts from
various researcher communities (Lightfoot, Baines, and Smart, 2013), a supporting
framework for the implementation of product-, use- and result-oriented PSS business
models (Reim et al., 2015), challenges faced by manufacturing companies when
transforming into PSS providers (Nudurupati, Lascelles, Wright, and Yip, 2016), and
challenges in the evaluation of the environmental performance of PSS (Kjaer,
Pagoropoulos, Schmidt, and McAloone, 2016; Nudurupati et al., 2016). Reviews have
also been conducted by focusing on different fields such as Information Systems,
Business Management, and Engineering & Design (Boehm and Thomas, 2013) and
different geographic areas (Tukker and Tischner, 2006; Tukker, 2015). PSS research is
progressing well as a research field spreading across various disciplines, research
domains (Reim et al., 2015; Tukker, 2015), and geographical areas (Tukker, 2015).
17
However, empirical evaluation of the tools and methods is scarce (Baines et al., 2007;
Vasantha et al., 2012) and the number of empirical studies is limited (Nudurupati et al.,
2016). In addition, to the best of the author’s knowledge, there has been no review paper
focusing on empirical studies in PSS.
In the PSS context, the value creation of PSS providers has been extended to the entire
product lifecycle (PLC) (Russo, Birolini and Ceresoli, 2016). This requires PSS providers
to adopt a PLC perspective for the product-service offering (Sundin, Lindahl, and Ijomah,
2009). Generally, the entire PLC can be divided into three major phases: the beginning-
of-life (BOL), middle-of-life (MOL), and end-of-life (EOL) (Kiritsis, 2011; Stark, 2011;
Vila and Albiñana, 2016). It is challenging to manage the information for the entire PLC
due to the complexity of products, processes, value creation networks and IT
environments in a PSS context (Stark, Damerau, Hayka, Neumeyer, and Woll, 2014),
which naturally highlights the importance of product lifecycle management (PLM) as a
strategic weapon for the company (Golovatchev and Budde, 2007). As a business
strategy, PLM concerns various stakeholders across the entire PLC, whereas as a
technical solution, PLM establishes various tools and technologies to facilitate knowledge
creation, transformation, and sharing throughout the entire PLC. Combing the above two
perspectives, PLM can thus be treated as a knowledge management system supporting
different PLC phases (Ameri and Dutta, 2005). Therefore, PLM can be qualified as a case
example of the implementation of a knowledge management strategy in the company.
The information gap in traditional PLM, i.e., only focusing on data collection at the
beginning-of-life (BOL) phase with incoherent and incomplete production information
during the middle-of-life (MOL) and end-of-life (EOL) phases limits the ability of
manufacturing companies to provide holistic product-service offerings when
transforming themselves to become PSS providers (Terzi, Bouras, Dutta, Garetti, and
Kiritsis, 2010). However, modelling products with multi-disciplinary teams distributed in
different stakeholders throughout the PLC is a necessity for a PSS provider. This can be
realized through digitalization (Figay, Ghodous, Khalfallah, and Barhamgi, 2012) thanks
to its capability to access product information across the entire PLC and to integrate huge
amounts of data within and outside of the company (Parviainen, Kääriäinen, Tihinen, and
Teppola, 2017; Thomas, Neckel, and Wagner, 1999). With the potential to reduce
resource usage and facilitate the circular economy, tools and approaches facilitated by
digitalization from a PLC perspective have been introduced to improve the product-
service offering (Bertoni and Larsson, 2011; Bertoni, Bertoni, and Isaksson, 2013;
Moreno and Charnley, 2016). However, they were more focused on design in the BOL
phase and with little concern for the other PLC phases. In addition, although digitalization
enhances the accuracy of information, increases the amount of information that can be
obtained, reduces the cost of information (Wilts and Berg, 2017), and even enables
sharing and reuse of useful product information throughout the entire PLC (Kiritsis, 2011;
), in practice product data collection is still limited to sensor-generated data, and other
types of useful information during the MOL or EOL phases are rarely considered (Yoo,
Grozel, and Kiritsis, 2016).
1 Introduction 18
Some studies have been conducted from PLC perspective in the PSS context, such as
proposing a framework for a life cycle-oriented configuration of PSS (Aurich, Wolf,
Siener, and Schweitzer, 2009) and investigating how manufacturing companies adapted
their physical products for PSS in product redesign by considering middle-of-life (MOL)
and beginning-of-life (BOL) phases (Sundin et al., 2009). In a literature review paper
identifying challenges in PSS evaluation through life cycle assessments, it was found that
most studies were conceptual in nature and the number of empirical studies in PSS from
the PLC perspective was limited (Kjaer et al., 2016).
According to the knowledge-based view (KBV), knowledge management enables an
organization to be capable of utilizing and developing knowledge resources to create
competitive advantages (Kogut and Zander, 1992; Grant, 1996; Spender, 1996). In the
PSS context, multiple stakeholders with certain responsibilities and different knowledge
requirements/strategies are integrated to create extended value-creation networks (Mert
et al., 2016), indicating a need for holistic knowledge exchange between R&D
(designers), manufacturers, users, and even recyclers (Terzi et al., 2010). The multi-
disciplinary knowledge from different stakeholders in different PLC phases, compounded
by the huge volume and diverse forms of data brought by digitalization, makes it even
more difficult to manage the information and knowledge (Figay et al., 2012; Li, Tao,
Cheng, and Zhao, 2015; Stark et al., 2014; Zhang, Hu, Xu, and Zhang, 2012). Although
research on PSS design, evaluation, and operation methods have been progressing well,
there are only a limited number of studies concerning knowledge management practice
in PSS operations (Qu et al., 2016).
Being identified as the key processes in knowledge management, knowledge sharing (i.e.,
knowledge contribution) and knowledge reuse (i.e., knowledge seeking and reuse) are
considered crucial in the PSS context as they can be used to overcome the rebound effects
raised from the prolonged product life in PSS (Chierici and Copani, 2016; Goh and
McMahon, 2009). However, in the PSS context and especially from the PLC perspective,
only limited research on knowledge sharing and reuse has been carried out, and those few
exceptions have mainly focused on knowledge sharing and reuse at the beginning-of-life
(BOL) phase while paying limited attention to the middle-of-life (MOL) phase
empirically (Baxter, Roy, Doultsinou, Gao, and Kalta, 2009; Cai, Xu, Xu, Xie, Qin, And
Jiang, 2014; Durst and Evangelista, 2018). In addition, as two interrelated and inseparable
knowledge management processes, knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse are related
to different focuses and needs (Kankanhalli, Tan, and Wei, 2005; Watson and Hewett,
2006). However, little research has been conducted to systematically study both
knowledge sharing and reuse (He and Wei, 2009).
Digitalization has revolutionized the means of communication and has enabled access to
a vast amount of information. It has enhanced data analysis capacity, and it shapes an
individual’s sharing and reuse behavior (Kankanhalli, Tanudidjaja, Sutanto, and Bernard,
2003; Treem and Leonardi, 2012; Vuori, 2011). Thus it has the potential to facilitate
knowledge sharing and reuse in the company (Choi, Lee, and Yoo, 2010). However, the
application of information technology tools cannot guarantee the success of knowledge
19
management (Hendriks, 2001). Finding suitable ways to make digitalization play a
greater role in knowledge management is still challenging (Markus, 2001).
The research gaps identified above and which will be addressed in this thesis are
summarized as follows:
Research gap 1: Limited number of empirical PSS studies and no literature review
focused on these. PSS research has been progressing well as a research field. However,
empirical studies in PSS are limited. In addition, there has been no review paper focusing
on empirical studies in PSS.
Research gap 2: Incomprehensive understanding of the impact of digitalization on PLM
in a PSS context. Treated as a knowledge management system supporting different PLC
phases, or a case example of the implementation of knowledge management strategy,
studies focusing on PLM facilitated by digitalization in PSS contexts have still mostly
focused on beginning-of-life (BOL) phase and with limited attention paid to other PLC
phases.
Research gap 3: Lack of knowledge management studies, especially focusing on both
knowledge sharing and reuse in PSS from a PLC perspective. With the requirement of
utilizing multi-disciplinary knowledge from different stakeholders in different PLC
phases, knowledge management is important and challenging in the PSS context.
However, knowledge management is rarely explored in the PSS context. In particular,
although knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse are considered to be crucial in the PSS
context to overcome rebound effects, only limited research on knowledge sharing and
reuse has been carried out in the PSS context and especially from the PLC perspective.
For those few studies targeting at this issue, the focus has been on the beginning-of-life
(BOL) phase while paying limited attention to the middle-of-life (MOL) phase
empirically. Furthermore, knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse are essentially two
interrelated and inseparable knowledge management processes relating to different
focuses and needs. However, little research has been conducted to systematically study
both knowledge sharing and reuse.
Research gap 4: Challenges exist in finding suitable ways to make digitalization play a
greater role in knowledge management. As the most significant technological trend faced
globally, digitalization has the potential to facilitate knowledge sharing and reuse in the
company. However, it cannot guarantee the success of knowledge management. It is still
challenging to find suitable ways to make digitalization play a greater role in knowledge
management.
1.3 Research objectives, research questions, and scope of the study
The main objective of this thesis is to increase the understanding of knowledge sharing
and knowledge reuse in the PSS context from a PLC perspective. The thesis addresses
research gaps concerning knowledge management in the PSS context in the digital era,
1 Introduction 20
including the limited empirical PSS studies, incomprehensive understanding of the
impact of digitalization on PLM in a PSS context, and the lack of knowledge management
studies in PSS from a PLC perspective. Furthermore, challenges exist in finding suitable
ways to make digitalization play a greater role in knowledge management. Given the
research objective of the thesis, the main research question guiding the research is:
What are the knowledge management practices/strategies in (industrial)
companies in the product-service systems context from a product lifecycle
perspective in the digital era?
Initiating from the concern of sustainability, this study focuses on the research streams of
PSS and knowledge management. In order to answer the main research question, six sub
research questions are defined to facilitate and structure the research efforts and analysis.
The current body of literature was reviewed first to understand the current state of studies
on PSS and especially knowledge management in PSS, as well as to identify the research
structure of the study. To meet this objective, three systematic literature reviews were
conducted with the aim of answering the following three sub-questions (SQs):
SQ1: What is the current state of empirical studies on PSS and what are the
focuses of these studies?
SQ2: How does digitalization influence PLM in the PSS context when treating
PLM as the implementation of a knowledge management strategy?
SQ3: What is the current state of the art of knowledge management practices in
PSS from a PLC perspective?
With the results from the literature review, this study moves towards the empirical section
to answer the following sub-questions:
SQ4: What are the knowledge requirements, knowledge sharing and knowledge
reuse strategies/practices in different PLC phases in the PSS context?
SQ5: What are the enablers and barriers to knowledge sharing and knowledge
reuse in different PLC phases in the PSS context?
SQ6: How does digitalization influence the above-mentioned requirements,
strategies/practices, and enablers/barriers in the above-mentioned context?
Considering the practical need to enrich the PSS research (i.e., Kjaer et al., 2016; Qu et
al., 2016; Nudurupati et al., 2016; Tukker and Tischner, 2006; Vasantha et al., 2012) and
the gaps identified in the literature (i.e., in section 1.2), the research questions, objectives,
and publication information are listed in Table 1.
21
Table 1. Research gaps, questions, and objectives
Research gap Research question Objectives Publication
Limited number of
empirical PSS
studies and no
literature review
focused on this area.
SQ1: What is the current
state of empirical studies
on PSS and what are the
focuses of these studies?
To understand the current state of the
empirical studies on PSS and
especially the focuses of these
studies.
I
Incomprehensive
understanding of the
impact of
digitalization on
PLM in PSS
context.
SQ2: How does
digitalization influence
PLM in the PSS context
when treating PLM as the
implementation of a
knowledge management
strategy?
To identify the impact of
digitalization on PLM for
manufacturing companies when
treating PLM as a knowledge
management strategy.
To provide suggestions for
manufacturing companies to
respond and remain competitive.
II
Lack of knowledge
management studies
in PSS from a PLC
perspective.
SQ3: What is the current
state of the art of
knowledge management
practices in PSS from a
PLC perspective?
To identify the knowledge
requirements, knowledge sharing
and reuse practices in manufacturing
companies from the existing
literature.
To propose possible research
directions to academia and raise
suggestions for practitioners on
facilitating knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse.
III
SQ4: What are the
knowledge requirements,
knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse
strategies/practices in
different PLC phases in
the PSS context?
To investigate the similarities and
differences of knowledge
requirements, knowledge sharing,
and knowledge reuse in different
PLC phases in the PSS context from
different stakeholders’ perspectives,
and from a PSS provider’s
perspective.
To provide managerial implications
to facilitate knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse in the PSS context.
IV, V
SQ5: What are the
enablers and barriers to
knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse in
different PLC phases in
the PSS context?
To identify the enablers and barriers
to knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse in different PLC
phases in the PSS context.
IV, V
1 Introduction 22
To reveal managerial implications to
facilitate knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse in the PSS context.
Challenges exist in
finding suitable
ways to make
digitalization play a
greater role in
knowledge
management.
SQ6: How does
digitalization influence
the above-mentioned
requirements,
strategies/practices, and
enablers/barriers in the
above-mentioned
context?
To investigate the impact of
digitalization on the knowledge
requirements, knowledge sharing,
and knowledge reuse in different
PLC phases in the PSS context.
To reveal managerial implications to
facilitate knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse in the digital era.
IV, V
From the research gaps, objectives and research questions discussed above, the
positioning of the current study can be described as narrowing the scope of research to
the PSS context with an emphasis on knowledge management from a PLC perspective.
Therefore, the first theoretical background area of this thesis concerns the product-service
systems (PSS) field. PSS was introduced to deliver value to customers and fulfill their
needs by providing an integrated bundle of product-service offering with the potential to
embrace sustainability by considering the entire product lifecycle (PLC) and
collaboration with the various stakeholders (e.g. Baines et al., 2007; Boehm and Thomas,
2013; Lindahl et al., 2014; Mert et al., 2016; Mont, 2002; Tukker, 2015; Russo et al.,
2016; Sundin et al., 2009; Visnjic and Van Looy, 2013). The product-service duality of
PSS combines both product-dominated and service-dominated logic in which product-
dominated logic contributes to the service effectiveness (Martinez, Bastl, Kingston, and
Evans, 2010; Oliva and Kallenberg, 2003). As a research field, PSS research has
progressed well spreading across various disciplines, research domains, and geographical
areas (e.g. Reim et al., 2015; Tukker, 2015), with various tools and methods created to
facilitate the PSS development (i.e. Qu et al., 2016; Vasantha et al., 2012). However, the
lack of empirical studies in this field calls for more insights from industry to enrich the
theories of PSS (Baines et al., 2007; Nudurupati et al., 2016; Vasantha et al., 2012). In
particular, studies from the PLC perspective or with a knowledge management focus are
scarce (Kjaer et al., 2016; Qu et al., 2016). This thesis therefore focuses primarily on
knowledge management from a PLC perspective in the PSS context, which leads to the
other two theoretical background areas of this article, knowledge management and the
product lifecycle (PLC).
In the PSS context, companies, especially PSS providers, have become more PLC-
oriented and this requires collaboration with all the relevant stakeholders to provide a full
customer solution (Aurich et al., 2006). This inevitably requires a holistic information
exchange between, within, and beyond the firm’s boundaries throughout the PLC (Terzi
et al., 2010). According to both the resource-based view (RBV) and the knowledge-based
view (KBV), knowledge and its appropriate management are sources of competitive
advantage for an organization (Grant, 1996a; Nonaka, 1994; Spender, 1996; Szulanski,
1996). PLM can be viewed as a strategy and a technical solution and it can be treated as
23
a knowledge management system supporting different PLC phases (Ameri and Dutta,
2005), or it can be seen as an example of the implementation of knowledge management
strategy. The open innovation concept proposed by Chesbrough (2003) is especially true
in the PSS context as firms should rely on external knowledge sources to complement
their own knowledge domains to innovate faster and better (Martín-de Castro, 2015).
Digitalization is revolutionizing the way companies are operated in the industrial value
chain (Parida, Sjödin, and Reim, 2019). This has led companies to increasingly rely on
virtualization and outsourcing, which requires companies to manage knowledge from
inside and outside the company and repackage this in integrated product-service offerings
to customers (Figay et al., 2012). This is essentially the key process for knowledge
management, i.e., knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse (Bemret and Bennetz, 2003).
Therefore, this thesis will focus on knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse in the PSS
context. Considering the key elements in a generic knowledge sharing and reuse model,
i.e., knowledge senders, knowledge recipients, the transfer mechanism, the knowledge
being transferred, and the context in which the knowledge transfer takes place (Szulanski,
1996, 2000) and the overall objective of this study, both knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse processes as well as the influencing factors behind them will be
investigated.
Digitalization increases the amount and accuracy of information and reduces the cost of
information (Wilts and Berg, 2017). It also enhances the easy distribution and
accessibility of knowledge to facilitate knowledge transfer and it creates more
opportunities for knowledge sharing and reuse (Alavi and Leidner, 2001; Choi et al.,
2010). Subsequently it holds the potential to reduce resource usage and facilitate the
circular economy (Moreno and Charnley, 2016). However, digitalization also increases
the complexity of products, processes, and value creation networks, bringing extremely
large volumes and incredibly diverse forms of data, and consequently increasing the
difficulty of managing knowledge (Li et al., 2015; Stark et al., 2014). Considering the
opportunities and challenges it has brought, the impact of digitalization on knowledge
management will be investigated in this thesis. The scope of the thesis is depicted in
Figure 1 (on the next page).
1.4 Summary of the key concepts
This thesis is primarily embedded within the literature on product-service systems (PSS),
knowledge management, product lifecycle (PLC) and product lifecycle management
(PLM), as well as related to the impact of digitalization on the above-mentioned research
fields (see Figure 1). In order to establish a solid theoretical foundation, it incorporates
well-grounded management and organizational theories, such as the resource-based view
(RBV) (e.g. Penrose, 1959; Barney, 1991) and the knowledge-based view (KBV) (Grant,
1996), which have been extensively explored in the strategic management literature and
the research streams noted above. Key definitions used in this thesis are presented in this
section.
1 Introduction 24
Figure 1. The scope of the thesis
Product-service systems (PSS)
The definition of PSS proposed by Mont (2002) is adopted in this thesis as her definition
incorporates sustainability. Product-service systems (PSS) refers to “a system of products,
services, supporting networks and infrastructures that are designed to be competitive,
satisfy customer needs and have a lower environmental impact than traditional business
models” (Mont, 2002, p.239).”
Product lifecycle (PLC) and product lifecycle management (PLM)
To facilitate understanding, a product lifecycle (PLC) in this thesis is defined relatively
broadly to also include the lifecycle of an integrated service as the ‘product’ in the PSS
context is an integrated product-service offering. The PLC concept adopted in this study
can be divided into three major phases based on different states of the product (Kiritsis,
Bufardi, and Xirouchakis, 2003; Kiritsis, 2011; Stark, 2011; Vila and Albiñana, 2016)
which are: the beginning-of-life (BOL), middle-of-life (MOL), and the end-of-life (EOL).
In the BOL phase the product is within the boundaries of the manufacturing company,
while in the MOL phase the product is in the hands of the final customer or the service
providers, and in the EOL phase the product is no longer useful or no longer satisfies its
users.
Product lifecycle management (PLM) is a concept with multiple interpretations. As a
business strategy, PLM concerns various stakeholders throughout the entire PLC to
manage the product related information efficiently during the whole product lifecycle and
accelerate business performance. As a technological solution, PLM enables knowledge
creation, transformation, and sharing throughout the entire PLC by establishing various
tools and technologies. In this thesis, the two perspectives above are combined, thus PLM
can be treated as the implementation of a knowledge management strategy which
25
manages product related knowledge throughout the entire PLC to support different PLC
phases (Ameri and Dutta, 2005; Kurkin and Januska, 2010).
Knowledge
In a continuum with data, information, and knowledge, data comprises the simple facts
which can be structured to be information, while information becomes knowledge when
it is interpreted, put into context, or has meaning added to it (Grover and Davenport,
2001). In this thesis, the definition by Alavi and Leidner is adopted and knowledge is
defined as “a justified belief that increases the entity’s capacity for taking effective
action” (Alavi and Leidner, 2001, p.109), which considers the interpretation and
contextualization of information (Nissen, 2006).
Knowledge management, knowledge sharing, knowledge reuse, and knowledge transfer
Knowledge management refers to the deliberate efforts focused on the management of
knowledge of a firm (Hislop, 2009). Knowledge sharing, knowledge reuse, and
knowledge transfer are intertwined concepts, but with different emphase and can be
viewed from different perspectives. Knowledge sharing typically emphasizes the sender’s
contribution to knowledge (i.e., knowledge contribution) from a supplier’s (sender’s)
perspective, while knowledge reuse focuses on the demand of knowledge from a
consumer’s (recipient’s) perspective (i.e., knowledge seeking and reuse), and knowledge
transfer emphasizes the efficacy of the knowledge movement between a predetermined
sender to the recipient (i.e., effective and efficient transfer) (Gray and Meister, 2004;
Majchrzak, Cooper, and Neece, 2004; Szulanski, 1996; Wang and Neo, 2000).
Considering the relationships and differences in knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse,
knowledge transfer in this thesis will be treated as a stage which is covered by both
knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse processes (Majchrzak et al., 2004; Markus,
2001; Szulanski, 2000). Therefore, the working definitions of these concepts in this thesis
are: Knowledge sharing is the process in which the knowledge sender contributes his/her
knowledge to the recipient and initiates the knowledge movement from the sender to the
recipient, where the focal actor is the knowledge sender. Knowledge reuse is the process
in which the recipient seeks and acquires knowledge from the sender, initiates the
knowledge movement from the sender to the recipient and applies the knowledge
received, where the focal actor is the knowledge recipient. Here, the focus of knowledge
reuse is especially on the aspect of reusing knowledge within the sender-receiver
relationship, i.e. reusing knowledge from a different individual or group, rather than
reusing the recipient’s own knowledge. Knowledge transfer is the knowledge movement
from the sender to the recipient, where the focus is the mechanism used to facilitate the
knowledge movement.
Digitalization and digital era
In the production mode, digitalization means to design products in a digital form, to
virtually compose and exercise components before really producing the product, and to
1 Introduction 26
maintain the relationship between product, users, and the producing company (Gray and
Rumpe, 2015). In this thesis, digitalization (also known as digital transformation) is more
business oriented, and refers to the changes that digital technologies can bring to a
company’s business model, products, processes and organizational structure (Hess, Matt,
Benlian, and Wiesböck, 2016). Following Liyanage (2012), digital era in this thesis refers
to ‘the period where digital technologies play a prominent role in shaping up and
regulating the behaviors, performances, standards, etc., of societies, communities,
organizations, and individuals’.
Sustainability
In mainstream discussion, sustainability refers to the humanity’s target goal of human
ecosystem equilibrium (Shaker, 2015). To develop further, the “three pillars”, or Triple
Bottom Line (TBL) conceptualisation of sustainability calls for a balance between
economic, social, and environmental dimensions (Elkington, 1997). In this thesis,
sustainability is more related to corporate sustainability, that is a ‘business approach that
creates long-term value for the organization by incorporating economic, environmental,
and social dimensions into its core business decisions’ (Benn and Bolton, 2011, p. 63).
1.5 Outline of the thesis
The thesis comprises two main parts. Part I presents an overview of the thesis and Part II
includes the five individual, complementary publications. The outline of the thesis is
presented in Figure 2. Part I begins with an introduction providing the research
background, identifying the research gaps and research objectives, and raising the
research questions of the thesis. In the second chapter, the theoretical background of the
thesis, including product service systems and knowledge management is summarized,
which helps the reader to better understand the position of this thesis against the existing
research. Chapter 3 details the research approach and the methodological choices.
Chapter 4 summarizes the objectives, key findings, and contributions of the five
individual publications one by one. Chapter 5 concludes Part I by presenting the findings
of the study with regard to the research questions, the theoretical contributions, the
managerial implications, and the limitations of the study. Suggestions for future research
are provided as well. Part II comprises the individual publications, each providing
different perspectives on the main research topic with separate research questions.
27
Figure 2. Outline of the thesis
29
2 Theoretical background
2.1 Product service systems
Over the past few decades, manufacturing firms have faced significantly higher
competition due to rising production costs, which has led to the development of service
offerings as a way to add value and differentiate them from those of the competitors
(Gebauer, Ren, Valtakoski, and Reynoso, 2012; Quinn, Doorley, and Paquette, 1990;
Sundin, 2009). In today’s competitive business environment, integrating products and
services has been a growing trend among manufacturing companies and providing
services has turned out to be a major source of revenue (Mont, 2002; Neely, 2008). As a
result, a number of studies have been dedicated to investigating this phenomenon. One of
the earliest publications among them used the term ‘servitization of business’ to
specifically describe manufacturing companies’ behavior of incorporating service into
their business and was written by Vandermerwe and Rada (1988). Since then, different
terms have been used to describe the various perspectives of the same phenomenon,
including: servitization, service-oriented manufacturing, service-dominant logic, and
product-service systems (PSS) (Baines et al., 2007; Boehm and Thomas, 2013; Gebauer
et al., 2012; Goedkoop et al., 1999; Mont, 2002; Neely, Benedetinni, and Visnjic, 2011;
Tukker, 2015; Vandermerwe and Rada, 1988; Vargo and Lusch, 2004). In line with this,
studies focused on this area have become more prolific since the late 1990s due to the
recognition of the ecological and economic benefits brought by PSS (Goedkoop et al.,
1999; Reim et al., 2015; Tukker, 2015).
2.1.1 PSS definitions and categorizations
In general, servitization refers to the business transition of manufacturing companies from
product -producing into providing services to enable their product-service offerings
(Martinez et al., 2010; Ren, 2009; Vandermerwe and Rada, 1988). Compared to that,
product-service systems (PSS) refer to an integrated bundle of tangible product and
intangible service offerings that deliver value rather than just functionalities to customers
and fulfill their needs (Boehm and Thomas, 2013; Roy and Baxter, 2009; Tukker and
Tischner, 2006). Although sometimes it is believed that PSS is the same as servitization,
some researchers take PSS as a special case of servitization focusing on sustainability
perspectives (Baines et al., 2007; Spring and Araujo, 2009). Incorporating sustainability,
PSS has been defined as “a system of products, services, supporting networks and
infrastructures that are designed to be competitive, satisfy customer needs and have a
lower environmental impact than traditional business models” (Mont, 2002, p.239).
Although servitization and PSS have been defined from different perspectives, with
different focuses and have started from different origins, both tend to converge in the
research area on the transition from product to service (Baines et al., 2007; Neely et al.,
2011; Tukker and Tischner, 2006), with the central concept of shifting the focus of
traditional businesses based on the design, manufacturing and sale of physical products
to a new business orientation that considers functionalities and benefits delivered through
2 Theoretical background 30
the combination of products and services (Manzini and Vezzoli, 2003). With this
transition, products can be seen as distribution mechanisms for service provision
(Kowalkowski, 2010). In this thesis, the term product-service systems (PSS) will be
adopted to denote this phenomenon.
Implied from the definition, a range of PSS possibilities exist in a spectrum ranging from
pure products as one extreme and pure services as the other extreme. In general, PSS can
be categorized into three types: i.e., product-oriented PSS, use-oriented PSS and result-
oriented PSS (Baines et al. 2007; Manzini and Vezzoli, 2003; Reim et al., 2015; Tukker
2004 and 2015; Yang, Moore, and Chong, 2009). This is according to the evolution and
the relationship between the PSS provider, customer and revenue model (Barquet, de
Oliveira, Amigo, Cunha, and Rozenfeld, 2013), as shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3. Categorization of PSS (adapted from Tukker, 2004)
In product-oriented PSS, the prime focus of the offering by the manufacturers is the
product, and service is an addition including examples such as upgrades, maintenance,
repairs, distribution, and consultancy. In this case, manufacturers sell a product, and the
product is considered a means to deliver service to the customers who have the ownership
of product. The service provided may reduce the costs of using the product (Barquet et
al., 2013). Product-oriented PSS can probably be applied easily by manufacturing
companies because it requires the least radical changes (Tukker, 2004).
In use-oriented PSS, manufacturers make the product available for use in the form of
product leasing, renting, or sharing. In this case, the manufacturers have the ownership of
product and sell the use or availability of the product to the customers. Although the
product still plays a central role, the focus of the manufacturers is not on selling product,
but maximizing the availability of products (Tukker, 2004), for instance through
extending the product lifecycle and reusing some of the materials (Barquet et al., 2013).
2.1 Product service systems 31
One example of use-oriented PSS is Rolls-Royce’s ‘power-by-the-hour’ service, where
the customers pay a fixed fee for actual usage of engines rather than paying for jet engines
and maintenance services separately. In this case, the customers have unlimited and
individual access to the engines, although they do not own them (Tukker, 2004). Another
well-known example of use-oriented PSS is car-sharing, where the same car can be used
sequentially by different customers at different times (Firnkorn and Müller, 2011 and
2012).
In result-oriented PSS, the manufacturers provide results or capabilities to customers
through a customized mix of services which are independent of product choice. In this
case, the manufactures sell results to the customers based on their mutual agreements
without a pre-determined product, and the customers pay for the results. This may include
for instance payment based on the unit of service delivered (Tukker, 2004). Xerox’s ‘pay-
per-print’ system is one such example, where Xerox is responsible for the all the required
activities (i.e., both operation and maintenance) that ensure the copying function, whereas
users pay for plain-paper copies. In result-oriented PSS, the PSS provider is free to
determine how to deliver the result. For instance, the PSS provider could deliver a
‘pleasant climate’ as a functional result to the customer’s office rather than selling cooling
equipment.
Along the spectrum ranging from product-, use-, and result-oriented PSS (as shown in
Figure 3), the dependence on products decreases gradually (Tukker, 2004). While a
product-dominated logic highlights standardization, and a service-dominated logic
emphasizes more individualized customer-integrated solutions (Martinez et al., 2010;
Oliva and Kallenberg, 2003), the product-service duality of PSS naturally combines both
logics, in which product-dominated logic contributes to the service effectiveness.
2.1.2 The importance and benefits of PSS
The similarity and high quality of products in most markets limits the space to
differentiate products, hence designing and manufacturing functional products is no
longer a sole source of competitive advantage for a company (Tukker, 2015). In order to
be competitive, companies have to increase the added value of their offerings by
providing integrated solutions to improve their position in the value chain (Pine and
Gilmore, 1999). With the potential to create higher value by involving different
stakeholders, PSS fulfills this objective (Mont, 2002). One famous example of successful
adoption of PSS is IBM, which was one of the largest computer and computer accessories
manufacturer in the world. On the verge of going bankrupt during the 1990s, IBM
successfully returned to be one of the top companies in the world by integrating services
and software in their offerings (Ahamed, Inohara, and Kamoshida, 2013). At the same
time, manufacturing companies have experienced an increasing amount of legal,
competitive and monetary pressure to use resources more effectively and sustainably
(Maxwell and van der Vorst, 2003), which could potentially be solved through the
advantages brought by PSS, i.e., through balancing the economic, social, and
environmental benefits (Mont, 2002; Sundin and Bras, 2005; Tukker, 2004). From the
2 Theoretical background 32
discussion above, it is clear that PSS could turn out to be a common means to combine
economic prosperity and sustainability naturally, which has been confirmed by multiple
researchers (Reim et al., 2015; Tukker, 2015).
In relation to economic benefits, in the PSS context, the locus of value creation shifts
from the PSS provider (normally the traditional manufacturing company) to the process
of co-creation among different stakeholders (Jacob and Ulaga, 2008) with extended
value-creation networks (Mert et al., 2016). Accordingly, this co-creation and co-
production of activities among PSS providers and the various stakeholders (i.e., the value
network partners) bring competitive advantages to the firm (Grönroos, 2011; Vargo and
Lusch, 2004). As value is provided to customers through the bundle of products and
services, some changes are required in the way of conducting business within
manufacturing companies. For instance, they may become more specialized in producing
products and components while sharing and outsourcing some services with other service
providers (Huang et al., 2011). In fact, the trend toward outsourcing logistics in
manufacturing companies is such a strategy to gain a competitive advantage by
cooperating with other stakeholders to streamline the value chain (Franceschini, Galetto,
Pignatelli, and Varetto, 2003).
The economic benefits of PSS can also be realized through product ownership
transformation. In the traditional way, a customer buys product and is responsible for the
performance, maintenance and even disposal of the product. In PSS, the ownership of a
product is not necessarily transferred to the customer, but can be retained by the
manufacturer (Baines et al., 2007). In this way, the manufacturer (i.e., the PSS provider)
is still responsible for the product after its sale, and it will support the customer to ensure
the usefulness of the product throughout its lifecycle (Tan, Anumba, Carrillo,
Bouchlaghem, Kamara, and Udeaja, 2010). From the manufacturing company’s point of
view, the combination of product-service offerings creates new market opportunities,
allowing it to access the product’s performance information when it is at the customer’s
side (i.e., in the usage phase), and increases customer loyalty through strengthened
customer relationships, which can eventually lead to a higher profit margin (Baines et al.,
2007; Barquet et al., 2013; Tan et al., 2010). Particularly, manufacturing companies can
learn more about customer needs by engaging in service activities, which enable them to
further customize and extend their product-service offerings and cumulate additional
sales. Customers who are satisfied with the services are more likely to purchase next
product replacements (i.e., new products) from the same manufacturer (Visnjic and Van
Looy, 2013). In addition, the retainment of the product ownership after product sales
motivates the manufacturer to enhance the utilization, reliability, design, and protection
of the product so that more value can be extracted from the product, which can potentially
increase profits (Baines et al., 2007). Lastly, the different key evaluation criteria used in
PSS to measure the company’s business performance, i.e., from the perspectives of
financial, customer, internal process, and learning & growth, can serve as guidelines for
the company to increase customer satisfaction because it helps to prioritize business
improvement projects for better continuous improvement (Pan and Nguyen, 2015).
2.1 Product service systems 33
From the customer’s point of view, some of the risks, responsibilities and cost associated
with the ownership of the product shift to the manufacturer, such as the responsibility for
dealing with the end-of-life product. At the same time, the customer may not only get
more customized product-service offerings, but also more new functionalities from
product-service offerings to suit their needs, and therefore get higher overall value and
satisfaction (Baines et al., 2007; Barquet et al., 2013; Tan et al., 2010). Therefore, PSS
brings economic benefits to both the manufacturing company and the customer (Baines
et al., 2007; Barquet et al., 2013; Tan et al., 2010).
With regards to sustainability, the benefits brought by PSS have been discussed
extensively in different studies. Compared to traditional product offerings, PSS enables
the shift to a more sustainable economy because it has the potential to reduce overall
resource consumption and environmental impacts through better design of the product-
service offering, better selection and utilization of the materials, better maintenance of
the products, and more efficient recycling, remanufacturing and reuse of the products
(Aurich et al., 2006; Baines et al., 2007; Lindahl, Sundin and Sakao, 2014; Mont, 2002;
Roy and Baxter, 2009). Traditionally, manufacturing companies have been incented to
maximize product sales as this is their prime method to boost sales, increase market share,
and generate profits. When manufacturing companies are transformed to become PSS
providers, they have incentives to lower the product- and material-related costs as much
as possible since the profits are mainly generated by the service offered. Therefore, they
strive to make the products as material-efficiently as possible, to extend the service life
of products as long as possible, to ensure the products are used by the customers as
intensively as possible, and to reuse the parts of the products as far as possible after the
end of their product life (Tukker, 2015). Through such efforts of better resource
utilization, the manufacturing companies not only gain economic benefits by maximizing
their service output and enhancing customer satisfaction, but also achieve sustainable
advantages by minimizing the material flows in the economy (Boehm and Thomas, 2013;
Gaiardelli, Resta, Martinez, Pinto, and Albores, 2014; Lindahl et al., 2014; Tukker,
2015). The environmental sustainability of use-oriented PSS and result-oriented PSS
might be even stronger than product-oriented PSS (Tukker and Tischner, 2006) because
of the change in the ownership structures (Glavič and Lukman, 2007; Mont, 2002). For
instance, the launching of a use-oriented PSS, i.e., carsharing systems, has been shown in
one study to reduce the total number of cars in a city, which brings great potential for
environmental gains (Firnkorn and Müller, 2011, 2012). As concluded by Tukker (2015),
PSS is one of the most effective instruments to move society towards a sustainable
economy.
2.1.3 Product lifecycle and its management in PSS
In the PSS context, the meaning and composition of products have shifted from being
mere artefacts sold to generate revenue to becoming a complex system comprising
tangible products and intangible services provided to the customer (Terzi et al., 2010). In
line with this, the value proposition of manufacturing companies does not end when
delivering a product to the customer. Rather, the value must be created after the sales and
2 Theoretical background 34
throughout the life cycle (Russo et al., 2016). Therefore, a key success factor when
developing products for PSS is to design the product from a life-cycle perspective by
considering all of the product’s lifecycle phases (Sundin et al., 2009). However, with the
increasing complexity of products, processes, value creation networks and IT
environments in the PSS context, managing all the information from the entire product
lifecycle (PLC) has become challenging (Stark et al., 2014). Given the current changing
business environment, product lifecycle management (PLM) can be viewed as a strategic
weapon that enables a company to provide added value to customers and thus gain a
competitive advantage over competitors (Golovatchev and Budde, 2007).
In general, the entire product lifecycle (PLC) can be divided into three major phases based
on different states of the product (Kiritsis et al., 2003; Kiritsis, 2011; Stark, 2011; Vila
and Albiñana, 2016): the beginning-of-life (BOL), middle-of-life (MOL), and the end-of-
life (EOL). I will go through the key activities involved in each stage here.
Normally, design and manufacturing sub-phases are included in the beginning-of-life
(BOL), where the product concept is generated, designed, and physically realized. In this
phase, the product is in the manufacturing company’s hands within the boundaries of the
company. Design is a recursive and iterative intellectual activity in which designers and
engineers try to find solutions for given problems through product, process, and plant
design. Thus, designers and engineers are generally measured by efficacy. Compared to
that, manufacturing is a repetitive transactional-based activity where the primary focus is
to concretize the decisions taken by others, thus manufacturing personnel are generally
measured in terms of efficiency (Terzi et al., 2010).
The middle-of-life (MOL) phase includes distribution (external logistic), use and support
service (in terms of repair and maintenance), in which the product is distributed, used,
and supported by customers and/or service providers. In the MOL phase, the product is
beyond the boundaries of the manufacturing company and in the hands of the final
customer or the service providers, such as maintenance actors and logistic providers,
implying that the ‘real life’ of the product is dealt with in this phase (Terzi et al., 2010).
Sometimes sales also belong to MOL (Vila and Albiñana, 2016).
Finally, the product reaches the end-of-life (EOL) phase when it is no longer useful, or
the product no longer satisfies its users, whether they are the initial purchasers or second-
hand owners. During the EOL phase, the product can be processed by reusing some of its
components for the same purpose for which they are conceived, by remanufacturing the
product into a sound working condition through disassembly, repair, replace and
reassembly, by recycling the waste materials for the original or other purposes, and by
disposing of the product in a landfill or incineration plant, etc. (Stark, 2011).
Being a business strategy, the idea of product lifecycle management (PLM) is to
efficiently manage the product through all phases of its lifecycle (Kiritsis, 2011; Stark,
2011; Wegst and Ashby, 2002) to support efficiency, flexibility, and efficacy in the
business processes (Terzi et al., 2010). It is an integrated approach to manage the product-
2.1 Product service systems 35
related information throughout the entire lifecycle of the product through a combination
of process, organization, methodology, and technology to support the full lifecycle of the
product and accelerate business performance (Kurkin and Januska, 2010; Saaksvuori and
Immonen, 2004; Stark, 2011). PLM not only enables a company to reduce product-related
costs and improve product quality (Miller, 2007; Patrick, 2008; Stark, 2011), but also
directly enhances customer satisfaction and indirectly increases market share by
shortening the time-to-market and providing more complex products (Affonso, Cheutet,
Ayadi, and Haddar, 2013; Teresko, 2004). In each phase of the product lifecycle (PLC),
the objectives of PLM are different. For instance, PLM focuses on product design and
production quality improvement in the beginning-of-life phase, whereas the improvement
of product availability, reliability, and maintainability is the focus of in the middle-of-life
phase (Yoo et al., 2016).
Some studies have been conducted from the PLC perspective in the PSS context (Aurich
et al., 2009; Kjaer et al., 2016; Sundin et al., 2009). Considering customer, manufacturer,
and product life cycle specific aspects, Aurich, Wolf, Siener, and Schweitzer (2009)
presented a lifecycle-oriented configuration framework of PSS with seven core elements,
including the physical product, the product life cycle, services, the impact of PLC on the
physical product, the impact of services on the physical product, technical configuration,
and service configuration. Although the framework was applied successfully in an
exemplary case in a cultivator for loosening compacted soil by winegrowers,
corresponding software was still required to further develop and realize this framework.
Sundin, Lindahl, and Ijomah (2009) conducted case studies about product redesign in
three different manufacturing companies in Sweden to explain how they adapted their
physical products for PSS. They found that compared to traditional products, PSS placed
new requirements on products such as easy-to-perform maintenance, repair, and
remanufacturing. Although the three companies were from quite different industries,
including manufacturers of forklift trucks, soil compactors and household appliances, all
of them adapted for the MOL and EOL phases of the products when redesigning the
products, i.e., considering the maintenance, repairs and remanufacturing, and this led to
cost reductions and an increase in profits.
Combining a systematic literature review of 75 publications with expert consultations,
Kjaer, Pagoropoulos, Schmidt, and McAloone (2016) identified a set of PSS
characteristics that might challenge the evaluation of the environmental performance of
PSS when conducting life cycle assessments. They distinguished three relevant scopes to
apply a life cycle assessment (i.e., to evaluate options within the PSS itself, to compare
the PSS with an alternative, and to model the actual contextual changes caused by the
PSS), derived three challenges when conducting life cycle assessments within the above-
mentioned scopes. This included identifying and defining the reference system, defining
functional units, and setting system boundaries. Suggestions were provided to overcome
these challenges based on the literature. However, most of the publications reviewed by
them were conceptual papers, indicating that empirical studies on PSS from a PLC
perspective were limited (Kjaer et al., 2016). This motivated the author of this dissertation
2 Theoretical background 36
to conduct studies on PSS from a PLC perspective, which are addressed in sub research
questions 3 to 6, and are reflected in Publications III, IV, and V.
2.1.4 Digitalization and product lifecycle management in PSS
As one of the most significant on-going transformations of contemporary society
(Hagberg, Sundstrom, and Egels-Zandén, 2016), digitalization has been said to be the
most significant technological trend faced globally (Leviäkangas, 2016). In general,
digitalization (also known as digital transformation) refers to the changes that digital
technologies can bring to a company’s business model, products, processes, and
organizational structure (Hess et al., 2016), as well as to all aspects of human society
(Stolterman and Fors, 2004). Through the use of the Internet of Things (IoT), intensive
data exchange, and predictive analytics, digitalization is revolutionizing the way
businesses are operated in the industrial value chain (Parida et al., 2019). Digitalization
impacts organizations from three perspectives: (1) it improves internal efficiency, which
refers to improving ways of working through digital means and re-planning the internal
processes, which leads to improved business process efficiency, quality, and consistency;
(2) it increases external opportunities, which refers to the new business opportunities in
the existing business domain in the form of new services, new customers, etc.; and (3) it
raises disruptive change, which refers to the complete changes of business roles brought
about by digitalization (Parviainen et al., 2017).
With regards to the second aspect above, digitalization has the potential to reduce
resource usage, facilitate the circular economy (Moreno and Charnley, 2016), and
improve the product-service offering from product lifecycle (PLC) perspective. To
increase the quality of early design decisions, Web 2.0 tools have been introduced to help
overcome knowledge sharing barriers between complex and cross-functional design
teams (Bertoni and Larsson, 2011). Through the analysis of real problems in European
aerospace manufacturing industry, a study conducted by Bertoni, Bertoni, and Isaksson
(2013) revealed the importance of taking requirements-based information that reflected
the fulfilment of the customers and system value into the overall PSS offering. A
Lifecycle Value Representation Approach was proposed to address this by visualizing the
value of alternative hardware concepts in the preliminary design of PSS (Bertoni et al.,
2013). Mostly, however, these studies focused on the beginning-of-life (BOL) phase,
especially design, whereas other PLC phases were seldom investigated.
Viewing information management as a silo, traditional product lifecycle management has
focused on data collection for a tangible product (Yoo et al., 2016). In this view, the
manufacturing company is responsible for the beginning-of-life (BOL) phase only
(Kiritsis, 2011) and traditionally there was no information flow between the
manufacturing company and the customer after product delivery (Terzi et al., 2010). This
information gap in the PLC, i.e., incoherent and incomplete production information
during the middle-of-life and end-of-life phases, limits the ability of the manufacturing
company to provide holistic products and services when it wishes to transform into a PSS
provider (Terzi et al., 2010). With the increasing complexity of the product-service
2.1 Product service systems 37
offering and the competitive environments, it is necessary for manufacturing companies
to model products with multi-disciplinary teams distributed in different companies
throughout the PLC (Figay et al., 2012). Digitalization can facilitate this because it
enables a better real-time view of operations and results, and improves the efficiency,
quality, and consistency of business processes by accessing the product information
throughout the entire PLC and integrates the company’s internal and external data
(Parviainen et al., 2017; Thomas et al., 1999).
The increased digitalization of work has led to more networked and knowledge-based
practices in the company (Jonsson, Mathiassen, and Holmström, 2018). Although
digitalization increases the amount and accuracy of information and reduces the cost of
information (Wilts and Berg, 2017), and even enables Closed Loop Lifecycle
Management (CL2M) to collect and reuse useful product information throughout the
entire product lifecycle (Kiritsis, 2011; ), product data collection in practice is still
restricted to sensor-generated data, while excluding or seldom considering other types of
information on MOL or EOL phases, even though some of those information could be
collected through human technicians’ observation (Yoo et al., 2016). In the PSS context,
for instance, more attention has been given to the MOL phase with regard to the product
information itself that is generated in this phase, rather than considering the reuse of this
information in other PLC phases (Yoo et al., 2016). Therefore, research is needed
regarding the types of other product data/information required to improve the product-
service offering throughout the entire PLC (Sundin et al., 2009).
The above-mentioned discussion motivated the author to further investigate the impact of
digitalization in the PSS context, which is addressed by sub research questions 2 and 6,
and is reflected in Publications II, IV, and V.
2.1.5 Summary of the extant studies on PSS
Since the term PSS was first convincingly established (Goedkoop et al., 1999), PSS
research has been reviewed by many scholars from different perspectives. Below, I will
go through the main review articles in this field regarding the topics of PSS.
Baines, Lightfoot, Evans, Neely, Greenough, Peppard, and Wilson (2007) engaged in a
clinical review of forty articles related to PSS within a wider manufacturing context. They
described the PSS concepts and features, presented the application of PSS with potential
benefits and barriers to adoption, summarized the features needed to design PSS
effectively by presenting the available tools and methodologies in PSS design, and
identified the challenges for future research. They concluded that although there were
various tools and methodologies for designing PSS, studies had rarely evaluated their
performance critically in practice, and there was not sufficient evidence to show the
completeness of these tools and methodologies. Therefore, better understanding of PSS
practices would be beneficial for the adoption of the PSS concept (Baines et al., 2007).
2 Theoretical background 38
Boehm and Thomas (2013) reviewed 265 relevant articles with focusing on the fields of
Information Systems, Business Management, and Engineering & Design. Despite the fact
that different understandings of PSS exist in the disciplines under investigation,
similarities were found from the definition graphs and a core definition of PSS across all
disciplines was formulated as ‘an integrated bundle of products and services which aims
at creating customer utility and generating value’ (Boehm and Thomas, 2013, p. 252).
Lightfoot, Baines, and Smart (2013) analyzed 148 peer-reviewed journal articles from the
knowledge production perspective and found that various distinct researcher communities
contributed to knowledge production in the manufacturing industry in the PSS context,
including researchers from service marketing, service management, operations
management, product-service systems and service science management and engineering.
The largest number of publications were from operations management researchers.
Actively contributing to knowledge production, all these communities shared an interest
in the concepts related to product-service differentiation, competitive strategies, customer
value, customer relationships and product-service configuration. With regards to the
knowledge flow, the more mature communities such as service marketing, service
management, and operation management made more use of locally produced knowledge
reserves, while the emerging PSS and service science communities made use of a more
evenly distributed knowledge base among the researcher communities (Lightfoot et al.,
2013).
Regarding the methods relevant to PSS, Vasantha, Roy, Lelah, and Brissaud (2012)
reviewed eight of the most referred state-of-the-art PSS design methodologies in the
literature to evaluate the maturity level of PSS design based on six categories, including:
the context, stakeholders, design stages, development cycle, life cycle and representation.
The results showed that PSS design was at an initial stage of development, and even the
most referred design methodologies had not been evaluated empirically in the industry
context (Vasantha et al., 2012).
Reim, Parida, and Örtqvist (2015) analyzed 67 articles in-depth and presented a
supporting framework for the implementation of product-, use- and result-oriented PSS
business models. To ensure the successful implementation of the business models, each
category of business model was linked to five equally important operational-level tactics,
namely contracts, marketing, networks, product and service design, and sustainability
practices (as shown in Figure 4 on next page). In addition, their review demonstrated that
PSS had been applied to a variety of research areas, and PSS business models were well
connected to sustainability (Reim et al., 2015).
Qu, Yu, Qu, Yu, Chen, Chu, and Tian (2016) reviewed 125 articles on PSS design,
evaluation, and operation methods (PSS-DEOM). Their analysis indicated that research
in PSS-DEOM was rapidly developing. In particular, the majority of studies on PSS
design methods investigated the customer perspective and modeling techniques; while
the majority of studies on PSS evaluation methods evaluated PSS from the customer value
perspective; and the majority of studies on PSS operation methods focused on PSS
2.1 Product service systems 39
business models. The body of work on PSS operation methods had only a limited number
of studies related to knowledge management, hence they concluded that more studies in
this field were needed (Qu et al., 2016).
Figure 4. Relationships between strategy, business models, and tactics for PSS (adapted
from Reim et al., 2015)
PSS in specific geographic areas such as the EU have been reviewed as well (Tukker and
Tischner, 2006). Summarizing PSS research linked to the European Union, Tukker and
Tischner (2006) found that although PSS in theory could enhance competitiveness and
contribute to sustainability, in reality this benefit was not always achievable even if the
PSS had been carefully designed. In addition, involving practitioners was crucial to create
a PSS science field and to realize the benefits of PSS (Tukker and Tischner, 2006).
Comparing the findings with his review paper in 2006, Tukker (2015) conducted another
review based on the literature on PSS from a business and sustainability perspective. He
found that PSS research had become more prolific since the year 2000. As a subject, PSS
had been adopted in a wider range of scientific fields such as manufacturing, ICT,
business management and design as well as in wider geographic regions. The number of
publications on PSS from Asia exceeded that of Europe (Tukker, 2015). He concluded
that in order to gain a competitive advantage through PSS, companies should focus on
availability rather than production of the product for clients, emphasize diversification in
their service offerings rather than product ranges, and pay attention to the need for
competent personnel with both product knowledge and relation management skills
(Tukker, 2015).
Challenges in PSS were discussed as well (Kjaer et al., 2016; Nudurupati et al., 2016).
Reviewing 60 relevant papers published between 1990 and 2013 from multi-disciplinary
sources, Nudurupati, Lascelles, Wright, and Yip (2016) identified eight challenges faced
by manufacturing companies in transforming to become PSS providers: (1) to explore the
customer perspective focusing on understanding value-in-use rather than only on product
requirements, (2) to redefine the interface with the customer, (3) to price, sell, and get
revenue from PSS, (4) to develop a generic approach to designing PSS and to
2 Theoretical background 40
understanding the supporting methods, tools and techniques, (5) to renew the relationship
with suppliers in the supply network, (6) to explore the organizational architecture, (7) to
identify the performance measurement metrics, and (8) to manage the culture transition.
They concluded that many existing studies were conceptual in nature with limited
practicality, which was compounded by the limited number of empirical studies, which
led to limited applicability of the results from those papers (Nudurupati et al., 2016).
Conducting a literature review of 75 publications, Kjaer, Pagoropoulos, Schmidt, and
McAloone (2016) identified a set of PSS characteristics that might challenge the
evaluation of the environmental performance of PSS through life cycle assessment, and
subsequently summarized the challenges, i.e., to identify and define the reference system,
to define the functional unit, and to set system boundaries. The literature reviewed
indicated a lack of empirical studies on PSS from the PLC perspective as most of the
publications were conceptual papers (Kjaer et al., 2016).
In summary, PSS research has been progressing well as a research field spreading across
various disciplines, research domains (Reim et al., 2015; Tukker, 2015), and geographical
areas (Tukker, 2015). However, empirical evaluation of the tools and methods has been
scarce (Baines et al., 2007; Vasantha et al., 2012), and the number of empirical studies is
limited (Nudurupati et al., 2016). Therefore, it would be beneficial to have a better
understanding of PSS practice so that the application of PSS as well as the benefits
realized from PSS could be clearly identified. This motivated the author to conduct a
literature review focusing on empirical PSS studies, which was addressed by sub research
question 1 and is reflected in Publication I.
With the limited number of PSS studies concerning knowledge management, more
studies in this field has been suggested (Qu et al., 2016). In addition, knowledge
management has been identified as a challenge for PSS providers, thus further
investigation on how to capture and manage knowledge through the entire PLC of the
product-service offering, as well as to identify the people skills required in PSS would be
valuable (Nudurupati et al., 2016). This motivated the author to conduct research on
knowledge management in the PSS context and from a PLC perspective, which is
addressed in sub research questions 3 to 6 and is reflected in Publications III, IV, and V.
2.2 Knowledge management in the PSS context in the digital era
2.2.1 Knowledge and its management as the basis of competitive advantage
External pressures from the turbulent environment, growing competition, digitalization,
shortening product lifecycles, and increasing interdependences have stimulated
discussions on the basis of a firm’s competitive advantage from different theoretical
views with different capabilities, such as the resource-based view, knowledge-based
view, relational view, and from a dynamic capabilities perspective ( Dyer and Singh,
2.2 Knowledge management in the PSS context in the digital era 41
1998; Eloranta and Turunen, 2015; Kraaijenbrink, Spender and Groen, 2010; Teece et al.,
1997; Teece, 2007).
The resource-based view (RBV) of the firm claims that difference between firms mainly
stem from the firm heterogeneity in terms of resources and capabilities (Barney, 1991;
Makadok, 2001; Penrose, 1959; Wernerfelt, 1984). In particular, a firm’s sustainable
competitive advantage comes from those valuable, rare, inimitable, and non-substitutable
(VRIN) resources and the capabilities to deploy them (Barney, 1991; Conner, 1991; Zott,
2003) because these four characteristics indicate the degree of heterogeneity and
immobility of a company’s resources. According to the literature review conducted by
Eloranta and Turunen (2015), when a manufacturing firm transits to become a PSS
provider, RBV is the most popular strategic perspective to explain the basis of
competitive advantage.
Sharing fundamental similarities with the RBV on the one hand, the knowledge-based
view (KBV) argues that a firm’s competitive advantage originates from possession and
deployment of valuable knowledge resources (Grant, 1996; Spender, 1996) as this is
essential for many organizational activities and processes such as technology
management, organizational learning, and organizational innovation (Grant, 1996a;
Spender, 1996). On the other hand, KBV extends RBV as it examines both the
exploitation of the firm’s existing resources and the ability of the firm to develop new
capabilities as well as to acquire external knowledge beyond the boundaries of the firm
(Grant and Baden-Fuller, 2004). In the past two decades, KBV has received considerable
attention from management scholars in the knowledge management literature. Related to
RBV and KBV, knowledge management deals with the organizational and managerial
processes and practices which enable more effective and efficient management of the
valuable resource, i.e., knowledge (Alavi and Leidner, 2001; Andreeva and Kianto, 2012;
Davenport and Prusak, 2000).
Extending the firm’s boundaries to the external environment, the relational view extends
RBV and believes that the critical resources or capabilities required by a firm to gain a
competitive advantage may reside outside the firm, which can be accessed or created by
establishing inter-organizational relationships with other firms (Douglas and Ryman,
2003; Dyer and Singh, 1998; Lavie, 2006). One of the key aspects of the inter-
organizational relationships is relational inter-firm knowledge sharing and joint learning
(Dyer and Singh, 1998; Grant, 1996).
Addressing the environmental dynamics, RBV evolved towards the dynamic capabilities
perspective, which argues that a firm’s competitive advantage comes from “the firm’s
ability to integrate, build, and reconfigure internal and external competencies to address
rapidly changing environments” (Teece, Pisano, and Shuen, 1997, p.516). In view of the
increasing availability of external knowledge resources in the modern economy, dynamic
capabilities influencing a company’s ability to target, absorb, and deploy external
knowledge have become a crucial source of competitive advantage (Fosfuri and Tribó,
2008). In addition, dynamic capabilities enable the transition of a traditional
2 Theoretical background 42
manufacturing company to become a PSS provider (Visnjic Kastalli and Van Looy,
2013).
In summary, considering the classic RBV and its extension or evolvement towards KBV,
the relational view, and dynamic capabilities, knowledge and its management are always
treated as a basis of competitive advantage for the firm. Considering the crucial role of
knowledge in the current rapidly changing environment (Hameed, Khan, Sheikh, Islam,
Rasheed, and Naeem, 2019), it is essential and necessary for firms to initiate knowledge
management (Donnely, 2019).
2.2.2 Knowledge as a concept and knowledge management strategy
Knowledge – definition and categorization
Before discussing knowledge management, the subject, i.e., knowledge itself, will be
discussed in this section. In a continuum starting from data, then information, and ending
with knowledge, knowledge is seen to be the most valuable as data consists of simple
facts which can be structured to become information, and information becomes
knowledge when it is interpreted, put into context, or when it has meaning added to it
(Grover and Davenport, 2001). In other words, knowledge is created from information
and is closely related to a person's beliefs and commitments (Nonaka, 1994). As a multi-
faceted concept, knowledge has been defined from different perspectives and with
different focuses (Alavi and Leidner, 2001). Reviewing various definitions of knowledge
in the extant literature, knowledge could be defined as a state of mind, an object, a process,
a capability, or a condition of having access to information (Alavi and Leidner, 2001). As
a state of mind, knowledge is an understanding through experience or learning; as an
object, knowledge can be used, stored, and manipulated to suit the needs of the company;
as a process, knowledge is the application of one’s experience; as a capability, knowledge
is the ability of knowing how to use information to influence future action; as a condition
of having access to information, knowledge focuses on the way to organize access and
retrieve the information in the company (Alavi and Leidner, 2001). In the current study,
by considering the interpretation and contextualization of information (Davenport and
Pruzak, 2000; Nissen, 2006), knowledge is defined as “a justified belief that increases the
entity’s capacity for taking effective action” (Alavi and Leidner, 2001, p.109).
One of the most widely acknowledged categories of knowledge is the distinction between
explicit and tacit knowledge (Nonaka, 1994; Nonaka et al., 2000; Nonaka and Von Krogh,
2009; Polanyi, 1966), which reflect the status of knowledge (Mesmer-Magnus and
Dechurch, 2012). Explicit knowledge refers to knowledge outside the human mind that
can be expressed in formal and systematic language, be codified and stored in words,
documents or other explicit forms, and can be captured and shared in records such as
databases and archives (Nonaka, 1994; Nonaka et al., 2000). Explicit knowledge
comprises data, formulae, manuals, drawings, and specifications etc. which can be
processed, transmitted, shared, and stored relatively easily (Nonaka et al., 2000).
However, explicit knowledge can only show the tip of the iceberg of what someone knows
2.2 Knowledge management in the PSS context in the digital era 43
(Nonaka, 1994), and ‘we can know more than we can tell’ due to the tacit nature of
knowledge (Polanyi, 1966, p. 4). Frist introduced by Polanyi (1966), tacit knowledge
refers to knowledge indwelling in the person’s mind that is difficult or sometimes even
impossible to formalize and articulate (Nonaka, 1994; Nonaka et al., 2000). The time
required to explain and learn tacit knowledge slows down its transfer (Argote, 2013). The
more tacit the knowledge is, the more difficult it is to articulate, and the greater interaction
and socialization between individuals is required to make the transfer successful (Hansen,
1999).
Explicit and tacit knowledge are dependent on each other, which makes it difficult to
identify the most valuables between these two types of knowledge (Nonaka, 1994). In
order to understand explicit knowledge, tacit knowledge is a necessity (Alavi and Leidner,
2001). Without explicit knowledge, tacit knowledge is meaningless (Sánchez, Sánchez,
Ruiz, and Tarrasóna, 2012). In addition, these two types of knowledge can be converted
to each other through different processes in a classic SECI model for knowledge creation
(Nonaka, 1994; Nonaka et al., 2000), i.e., socialization, externalization, combination, and
internalization. Movement through the four knowledge conversion modes forms a spiral
and dynamic process of knowledge creation taking place both intra- and inter-
organizationally, where the interaction between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge
is amplified (Nonaka, 1994; Nonaka et al., 2000).
Knowledge can also be categorized based on its functions or related discipline, such as
design knowledge (e.g. product design, process design, service design, service operation
design, etc.), product knowledge, task knowledge (e.g., design task, logistics task, etc.),
production/manufacturing knowledge, customer knowledge, and market knowledge, etc.
(Baxter et al. 2009; Zhang et al., 2012).
It is important to describe the types of knowledge for further analysis, for instance to
identify which type of knowledge is most important in a company, or in a special context.
However, the previously described categories or distinctions are not independent, rather
their scope of definition may overlap in various ways. Knowledge can be described as
one or several categories.
Knowledge management – the process view and strategy
From the KBV’s perspective, knowledge management enables an organization to be
capable of utilizing and developing knowledge resources to create a competitive
advantage, and thus it represents the capability- and activity-oriented aspects of the KBV
(Kogut and Zander, 1992; Grant, 1996; Spender, 1996). Organizations in various
industries have invested heavily in knowledge management initiatives (i.e. Dyer and
Nobeoka, 2000; Ezingeard, Leigh, and Chandler-Wilde, 2000; Jang, Hong, Bock, and
Kim, 2002; Massey, Montoya-Weiss, and O'Driscoll, 2002). Some organizations, such as
Boeing, IBM, and Siemens, have achieved great success from their knowledge
management investments (Rao, 2012). However, knowledge management expenditures
are not necessarily proportional to the gains obtained. Numerous knowledge management
2 Theoretical background 44
initiatives have failed to achieve the desired results (Malhotra, 2004). Quite a few
companies are still struggling with low returns on knowledge management investments
(Chai and Nebus, 2012; Rao, 2012;). Therefore, finding a more systematic way to manage
knowledge management initiatives has become an urgent issue for both academia and
industry.
Given the importance and complexity of knowledge management, researchers have
investigated it in various disciplines (Wang and Noe, 2010). To better understand the
concept and key points of knowledge management, some definitions in the extant
literature are listed in Table 2.
Table 2. Definitions and key points of knowledge management
Reference Definition Key points
Alavi and
Leidner, 1999
Knowledge management is a systematic and
organizationally specified process to acquire, organize,
and communicate employees’ knowledge so that other
employees can use this knowledge to improve work
efficiency and productivity.
Process
Acquisition, sharing, and
application/reuse
Alavi and
Leidner, 2001
Knowledge management is regarded as a process to a
large extent, involving at least four basic processes of
creating, storing/retrieving, transferring and applying
knowledge.
Process
Creation, storage/retrieval,
transfer, and application
Argote, 2003 Knowledge management research focuses on the
“fundamental set of questions” relating to knowledge
creation, retention and transfer within and across
companies, as well as the management of company’s
knowledge reserves.
Process + practice
Creation, retention, and
transfer
Bemret and
Bennetz, 2003
Knowledge management is a systematic process of
creating, maintaining, and cultivating an organization to
fully utilize its knowledge to realize its vision, which is
broadly regarded as a sustainable competitive advantage
or achieving high performance.
Process
Creation, maintain,
cultivation, and application
/ reuse
Hislop, 2009 Knowledge management is the processes in an
organization related to knowledge acquisition,
codification, sharing, creation, and application.
Process
Acquisition, codification,
sharing, creation, and
application
Janz and
Prasarnphanic
h, 2003
Knowledge management is an organizational strategy to
manage the development, flow, and application of
knowledge.
Process + practice
Development, flow
(movement), and
application
Navimipour
and Charband,
2016
Knowledge management is the process of efficiently
capturing, sharing, developing, and using the
knowledge.
Process
2.2 Knowledge management in the PSS context in the digital era 45
Capturing, sharing,
development, and use
(application)
Scarborough,
Swan, and
Preston, 1999
Knowledge management refers to the process of
creating, acquiring, sharing, and using knowledge to
enhance learning and performance in an organization.
Process
Creation, acquisition,
sharing, and application
Swan, Newell,
Scarbrough,
and Hislop,
1999
Knowledge management concerns any processes and
practices related to the creation, acquisition, sharing and
use of knowledge, skills and expertise.
Process + practice
Creation, acquisition,
sharing, and application
As an umbrella term, knowledge management refers to the deliberate efforts focused on
the management of knowledge of a firm (Hislop, 2009). Despite the diversity of processes
or practices when enumerating knowledge management, such as knowledge acquisition,
sharing, transfer, flow (movement), codification, storage/retrieval,, retention, maintain,
development, cultivation, creation, and application/reuse (as shown in Table 2), the
process view of knowledge management in its most simplistic form basically comprises
three broad intertwined stages: knowledge creation, transfer/sharing, and
application/reuse. Knowledge creation refers to the development of new content or the
replacement of already existing content within a firm’s knowledge, both tacit and explicit
(Alavi and Leidner, 2001). Knowledge transfer refers to process through which one social
unit learns from or is influenced by the experience of another unit (Argote, 2013; Argote
and Fahrenkopf, 2016). Broadly, this involves both knowledge sharing and knowledge
reuse (Wang and Neo, 2010). Knowledge application is the process of knowledge
utilization. Especially, the ability to gain competitive advantage is more about applying
existing knowledge to take action than the knowledge itself (Grant, 1996), indicating the
importance of knowledge reuse.
Knowledge creation is generally regarded as more important and more difficult to
manage. However, as indicated in the literature, the low returns on knowledge
management initiatives has mostly been due to failing to share and reuse knowledge
(Majchrzak, Wagner, and Yates, 2013; Wang and Neo, 2010). Therefore, a better
understanding of knowledge sharing and reuse in a company is needed to improve returns
on knowledge management investments, which motivated the author to narrow the focus
of knowledge management to particular processes, i.e., knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse, which will be discussed in detail in section 2.2.3.
Further building on the importance of knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse, studies
have also been conducted on knowledge management strategies to understand how
knowledge sharing and reuse has performed. Codification and personalization are two
types of knowledge management strategies in a broad sense (Hansen, Nohria, and
Tierney, 1999). In the codification strategy, knowledge is codified and stored so that
potential consumers/users can reuse it without necessarily knowing the knowledge
producer. It is a ‘people-to-document’ approach to separate knowledge from the person
2 Theoretical background 46
and focuses on the use of technology, such as databases, electronic repositories, and
decision support systems, etc. In contrast, in the personalization strategy, there are direct
interactions between knowledge producers and the potential knowledge consumers of
knowledge communication, i.e., through face-to-face communication, such as on-the-job
learning, storytelling, training activities and communities of practice (Brown and Duguid,
2001). It is a ‘people-to-people’ approach that facilitates interactions among people
through networks, where knowledge is tied to a person and may remain tacit.
Codification and personalization strategies are associated with different costs and
benefits, which make it challenging for organizations to develop an optimum knowledge
management strategy. The codification strategy requires companies to invest in electronic
repositories and knowledge must be codified by the producers before knowledge reuse
takes place, whereas the cost involved in the personalization strategy is incurred mostly
when knowledge reuse takes place and is proportional to the number of potential
knowledge consumers (Chai and Nebus, 2012). In the codification strategy, a large
number of people can access a standardized repository simultaneously, whereas only a
limited number of people can be reached in the personalization strategy although rich
information can be conveyed (Chai, Gregory, and Shi, 2003). In addition, potential
consumers can retrieve knowledge from a repository whenever they need it, whereas
whether they can obtain knowledge from the knowledge producers depends on the
availability of that particular person (Lee and Van den Steen, 2010). The codification
strategy can only transfer explicit knowledge, whereas the personalization strategy can
transfer both explicit and tacit knowledge (Hahn and Mukherjee, 2007). However, due to
the dramatically increased cost of knowledge codification incurred by the increased
tacitness of knowledge, firms prefer to keep the tacit form of knowledge (Jasimuddin and
Zhang, 2009).
Despite extensive research on the choice of strategies between codification and
personalization, not many consistent results or recommendations could be found in the
literature. In their pioneering and highly cited work proposing the classification of
codification and personalization strategies, Hansen, Nohria and Tierney (1999) found that
it was not an optimal choice to adopt a single strategy or to use two strategies
simultaneously with the same effort. Rather, they found that companies should choose a
knowledge management strategy based on their products’ characteristics and their
employees’ working needs. It would be better to use one strategy predominantly (e.g.,
80%) and use the other one in a supporting role (e.g., 20%), which was supported by their
findings from management consulting firms, computer companies, and healthcare
providers (Hansen et al., 1999). However, a balanced 50-50 split between the two
strategies has been found to be preferred in certain industries such as the pharmaceutical
industry (Koenig, 2001) and in certain organizations such as NASA (Moll, 2019). In order
to reconcile these contradictory views, some researchers have pointed out that companies
may need to evolve their knowledge management strategies by adding a temporal
dimension and adjusting the proportion of codification and personalization to align with
the various stages of knowledge management, i.e., to adopt one strategy predominantly
at the beginning and move towards a balanced portfolio as it matures (Scheepers,
2.2 Knowledge management in the PSS context in the digital era 47
Venkitachalam, and Gibbs, 2004). A case study in NASA confirmed this view, which
showed that NASA’s knowledge management strategy evolved from an emphasis on a
personalization strategy in the 1980s which changed to an emphasis on a codification
strategy in the 1990s, and finally had adopted a balanced approach since around 2012. No
detrimental effects on NASA’s performance had been found since adopting this balanced
approach (Moll, 2019).
The discussions above revealed that both codification and personalization strategies
should be adopted by complementing each other to achieve the focused objectives of the
company (Powell and Ambrosini, 2012). However, no conclusive guidelines on the mix
ratio could be found in the literature and the studies were from different industries without
any focus on a PSS context, which motivated the author to investigate knowledge
management strategies and practices in the PSS context. Considering the various
stakeholders, entire lifecycle concerns, and multi-disciplinary knowledge required in the
PSS context would provide insight to both PSS and knowledge management research.
2.2.3 Knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse – definition and mechanisms
Broadly speaking, knowledge sharing, knowledge reuse, and knowledge transfer refer to
the same process of knowledge movement (Argote, 2013; Argote and Fahrenkopf, 2016;
Argote and Ingram 2000; Davenport and Prusak, 2000; Majchrzak et al., 2004; Markus,
2001; Szulanski, 1996; Van den Hooff and De Leeuw van Weenen, 2004; Wang and Neo,
2010). Generally, there are two parties involved in the knowledge movement process: the
knowledge sender/contributor/producer, which refers to the roles of employees when they
have knowledge to share with others; and the knowledge recipient or potential
consumer/user, which refers to the roles of employees when they try to seek and use
knowledge from others (Szulanski 1996; Alavi and Leidner 2001). To make the
knowledge movement successful, effective and efficient transmission channels, i.e., the
mechanisms, are necessary (Gupta and Govindarajan, 2000).
Wang and Neo (2010) defined knowledge sharing as the provision of task information
and know-how to help and to collaborate with others with the objective of problem
solving, the development of new ideas, or the implementation of policies/procedures .
Compared to that, Davenport and Prusak (2000) defined knowledge sharing as a two-way
process, including both the provision and receipt of task information and know-how
concerning a product or a procedure. Similar to the definition from Davenport and Prusak
(2000), the knowledge sharing process proposed by Van den Hooff and De Leeuw van
Weenen (2004) contains knowledge donation and knowledge collection, in which
donation occurs when a sender shares knowledge with others. This is similar to
knowledge sharing defined by Wang and Neo (2010), whereas collection takes place
when a recipient gathers knowledge from others. In addition, in their definition,
knowledge reuse is also included in knowledge collection (Van den Hooff and De Leeuw
van Weenen, 2004).
2 Theoretical background 48
Defined by Markus (2001), knowledge reuse is a process with four stages, including
knowledge capture or documentation, knowledge packaging for reuse (processing
documents in accordance with the classification scheme), knowledge distribution or
dissemination (providing people with access to it), and knowledge reuse (recall from
where the required knowledge is and the actual application of it), as shown in Figure 5.
In particular, this process highlighted the importance of knowledge capture and packaging
of the existing knowledge, which is from the knowledge recipient’s perspective. In
addition, it was found that an IT-focus was crucial in knowledge reuse, especially
concerning knowledge storage and retrieval (Markus, 2001).
Figure 5. Knowledge reuse process (adapted from Markus, 2001)
More focused on the understanding of knowledge reuse for innovation, Majchrzak,
Cooper and Neece (2004) proposed a different knowledge reuse process with three main
stages, where stage one focuses on reconceptualizing the problem which needs to be
solved for innovation, stage two concerns searching and evaluating existing knowledge
within or outside the company to select a usable one, and stage three is the actual
acquisition of the knowledge and full application into a final solution, as shown in Figure
6. Compared to the process proposed by Markus (2001), the process proposed by
Majchrzak et al. (2004) paid more attention to the search and actual use of the existing
shared knowledge from the knowledge recipient’s perspective.
Figure 6. Knowledge reuse process for innovation (source: Majchrzak, et al., 2004)
Briefly
Evaluation
Analyze In
DepthScan
Fully
Develop
Decide to
Search
Reconceptualize
Problem for
Innovation
Search and Evaluate
Experience
insurmountable
performance gap
Awareness of traditional
and nontraditional
Conduct broad,
nontraditional search
Awareness that
meta‐knowledge
exists
Access to
metaknowledge
Shared
experience with
adapter
2.2 Knowledge management in the PSS context in the digital era 49
Compared to knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse, knowledge transfer refers to a
process through which one social unit learns from or is influenced by the experience of
another unit (Argote, 2013; Argote and Fahrenkopf, 2016), i.e., knowledge acquired in
one situation is applied to another situation (Argote and Ingram 2000; Szulanski, 1996).
Therefore, as a process, knowledge transfer comprises both knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse (Alavi and Leidner, 2001; Appleyard, 1996).
Knowledge sharing, knowledge reuse, and knowledge transfer are intertwined concepts,
but with a different emphasis and from different perspectives. Knowledge sharing
typically emphasizes the sender’s contribution to knowledge (i.e., their knowledge
contribution) from a supplier’s (sender’s) perspective; knowledge reuse focuses on the
demand for knowledge from a consumer’s (recipient’s) perspective (i.e. knowledge
seeking and reuse), and knowledge transfer emphasizes the efficacy of knowledge
movement between the predetermined sender and recipient (i.e. the effective and efficient
transfer) (Gray and Meister, 2004; Majchrzak et al., 2004; Szulanski, 1996; Wang and
Neo, 2010). As two interrelated and inseparable knowledge management processes,
knowledge sharing (i.e., knowledge contributing) and knowledge reuse (i.e., knowledge
seeking and reuse) are associated with different needs (Kankanhalli et al., 2005; Watson
and Hewett, 2006). However, little research has been conducted to investigate both
knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse systematically (He and Wei, 2009). Based on
this, knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse will be the emphasized areas in this thesis.
Considering the relationships and difference between these two processes, knowledge
transfer in this thesis will be treated as a stage covered by both knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse processes (Majchrzak et al., 2004; Markus, 2001; Szulanski, 2000).
Therefore, this thesis will further explore knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse from
the sender’s and the recipient’s perspective respectively, with the emphasize on the
mechanism used. The working definition of knowledge sharing, knowledge reuse, and
knowledge transfer used in this thesis are listed as follows by considering different
emphasis:
Knowledge sharing is the process in which the knowledge sender contributes his/her
knowledge to the recipient and initiates the knowledge movement from the sender to
the recipient. The focal actor is the knowledge sender.
Knowledge reuse is the process in which the recipient seeks and acquires the
knowledge from the sender (different from the recipient herself/himself), initiates the
knowledge movement from the sender to the recipient and applies the knowledge
received. The focal actor is the knowledge recipient and the focus is on the reuse of
knowledge from the sender, rather than reuse of the recipient’s own knowledge.
Knowledge transfer is the knowledge movement from the sender to the recipient. The
focus is on the mechanism used to facilitate the knowledge movement.
Mechanisms in knowledge transfer (i.e., including both knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse in this thesis) describe how and through what intermediate steps certain
2 Theoretical background 50
knowledge is delivered following a set of initial conditions from the knowledge sender to
the recipient, including the methods, procedures, or processes involved in knowledge
movement (Chai et al., 2003). The success of knowledge transfer depends largely on the
mechanisms used as they provide opportunities to transfer documents or experienced
personnel as well as communicate with others or other units (Argote, 2013). The
capability of knowledge transfer mechanisms can be described based on their richness
and reach (Evans and Wurster, 1997). Table 3 summarizes the characteristics of the
knowledge transfer mechanism based on their richness and reach.
Table 3. Characteristics of the knowledge transfer mechanism based on richness and
reach (modified from Chai, et al., 2003; Daft and Lengel, 1986; Evans and Wurster, 1997;
Gupta and Govindarajan, 2000; Sambamurthy, Bharadwaj, and Grover, 2003)
According to Media Richness Theory (Daft and Lengel, 1986), communication
mechanisms differ in their ability to transfer the ‘richness’ of knowledge. Richness refers
to the amount and type of information that a mechanism can transmit in a certain time
interval, which is determined by bandwidth (that is, the amount of information that can
be moved from the sender to the recipient in a given time), customization (the degree to
which the information can be customized), and interactivity (the degree to which the
sender can interact with the recipient) (Daft and Lengel, 1986; Evans and Wurster, 1997).
The amount of tacit and explicit knowledge transferred through the mechanism reflects
the capability of the mechanism to reduce uncertainty and equivocality in knowledge
processing (Daft and Lengel, 1986). From rich to less rich (lean), i.e., from personal to
impersonal methods, the mechanisms ranked were: group meeting (e.g., teams, task
forces, and committees with the ability to reach a collective judgment and consensus),
direct contact, special reports (e.g., single studies or surveys with the purpose of gathering
and synthesizing data on a certain issue), formal information systems (e.g., periodic
reports and e-databases), and rules and regulations. The transfer mechanisms must be
adjusted to the type of knowledge being transferred in order to make knowledge transfer
effective (Gupta and Govindarajan, 2000). The use of information technology can
2.2 Knowledge management in the PSS context in the digital era 51
facilitate the transfer of codified knowledge, whereas the transfer of tacit knowledge
requires the usage of rich mechanisms, such as face-to-face communication (Gupta and
Govindarajan, 2000) or the movement of personnel across an organization (Argote and
Miron-Spektor, 2011; Argote, 2013).
Different from richness, reach was originally proposed to interpret the change in
economics of information brought by the Internet (Evans and Wurster, 1997) and then
was expanded into the scope of digital knowledge through communication channels
(Sambamurthy et al., 2003). Reach refers to the number of people that the communication
medium can influence or spread at one time, and is associated with ‘connectivity’ (Evans
and Wurster, 1997). Chai, Gregory and Shi (2003) extended this concept to describe the
knowledge transfer mechanism’s ability to overcome the geographical, temporal and
hierarchical barriers in the transfer of knowledge.
Further, there is a trade-off between richness and reach (Chai et al., 2003; Evans and
Wurster, 1997). For example, the transfer of rich information requires proximity and
dedicated mechanisms, such as the transfer of people or face-to-face meetings, and the
costs or physical constraints of these mechanism result in a limited number of recipients
at a time, which thus reduces the reach level of the mechanism. On the other hand,
knowledge transfer mechanisms reaching a wider range of people, such as best practice
guidelines, can only transfer a limited amount of information, which thus reduces the
degree of richness (Chai et al., 2003; Evans and Wurster, 1997).
2.2.4 Knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse – influencing factors and
mechanisms
Knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse is often not a natural act (Davenport and Prusak,
2000). In order to enhance knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse in an organization, it
is important to understand the influencing factors, which have been explored by various
researchers. In a generic knowledge sharing and reuse model, the knowledge sender, the
knowledge recipient, the transfer mechanism, the knowledge being transferred, and the
context where the knowledge transfer takes place are the key elements (Szulanski, 1996,
2000). Taking this model into account and in line with the working definition of
knowledge sharing, knowledge reuse, and knowledge transfer in this thesis, the
influencing factors are categorized into two sets. The first category includes factors
related to the people who share and reuse the knowledge (i.e., the knowledge sender and
recipient), and the Motivation-Ability-Opportunity (MAO) framework will be used to
summarize these factors. The second category includes factors influencing the selection
of the mechanisms to transfer knowledge between the sender and recipient, and the
Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) will be used to explain this set of factors.
Influencing factors related to people summarized in the MAO framework
Originating in the social-psychological domain, the Motivation-Ability-Opportunity
(MAO) framework was used to explain human behavior and its subsequent results
2 Theoretical background 52
(Blumberg and Pringle, 1982; Kang and Kim, 2017; Pringle and Blumberg, 1996). Later,
it was used in the knowledge management context to examine how to stimulate
knowledge transfer in a more structural manner (Argote, McEvily, and Reagans, 2003;
Reinholt, Foss, and Torben, 2011; Siemsen, Roth, and Balasubramanian, 2008).
According to Siemsen, Roth, and Balasubramanian (2008), motivation represents one’s
willingness to act, ability refers to one’s skills or knowledge base related to the action,
and opportunity refers to the environmental or contextual mechanisms which enable
action.
Some researchers believed that motivation, ability and opportunity are complementary to
improve knowledge management performance (Argote et al., 2003), while some
researchers point out that constraining factors, i.e., a ‘bottleneck’, among these three
factors determines the knowledge transfer performance (Siemsen et al., 2008), while
future still, some researchers have proposed that ability and opportunity moderate the
relationship between motivation and an employee’s performance (Maclnnis and Jaworski,
1989). Finally, some researchers have shown that motivation and ability moderate the
relationship between opportunity and an employee’s knowledge sharing efficacy
(Reinholt et al., 2011). Although different viewpoints have been presented on the
relationship between motivation, ability, opportunity, and performance (i.e., knowledge
management, knowledge transfer, knowledge sharing, etc.), the basic idea of the MOA
framework in knowledge management is the same, that is, in order to facilitate knowledge
transfer, the actors should not only be motivated to engage in knowledge transfer and
have the ability to transfer the knowledge, but also need to have the opportunity to be
involved in the knowledge transfer.
Both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation influences knowledge transfer behavior (Argote
et al., 2003; Lin, 2007; Wang and Noe, 2010). Intrinsic motivation is based on self-desire
that means the pleasure and inherent satisfaction obtained from specific activities or
experiences, i.e., self-efficacy, whereas extrinsic motivation arises from outside influence
of the individual (i.e., the external environment) which indirectly satisfy the individual’s
needs, such as (monetary) rewards or benefits gained from performing some activities
(Lin, 2007; Osterloh and Frey, 2000; Quigley, Tesluk, Locke, and Bartol, 2007).
It has been found that a higher level of self-efficacy intrinsically motivates the knowledge
sender to share knowledge. Through knowledge sharing, the knowledge sender’s sense
of helping others prompts them to participate in knowledge sharing in the future (Wasko
and Faraj, 2000). Employees can be satisfied by enhancing the confidence in their ability
to provide useful knowledge to others through successful knowledge sharing practices,
thus be motivated to share more (Quigley et al., 2007). In addition, intrinsic motivation
is essential for the transfer of tacit knowledge as it can overcome multiple task and ‘free-
riding’ problems (Osterloh and Frey, 2000).
From the perspective of extrinsic motivation, an individual’s behavior is driven by the
perceived value and the benefits of taking an action (Lin, 2007). Sharing knowledge with
others may create reciprocal benefits, that is the knowledge sender’s future knowledge
2.2 Knowledge management in the PSS context in the digital era 53
requirements may be met by others (Wasko and Faraj 2000). The more reciprocal benefits
obtained from successful knowledge transfer, the more trust will develop in obtaining
benefits in the future. Thus, more willingness to maintain long-term relationships between
the knowledge sender and the recipient will be initiated, thus motivating further
knowledge exchange/transfer (Hau, Kim, Lee, and KIm, 2013; Lin, 2007). This is a
benefit for both the knowledge sender and the knowledge recipient. Although certain
motivators have similar impacts on both knowledge sharing (from the knowledge
sender’s perspective) and knowledge seeking (from the knowledge recipient’s
perspective), such as the positive impact of trust and the negative impact of the effort
required, there are different motivations for knowledge sharing and seeking as well (He
and Wei, 2009). For instance, enjoyment in helping others has been found to motivate
knowledge sharing, whereas perceived usefulness was found to motivate knowledge
seeking. Therefore, it is valuable to further investigate the influencing factors for
knowledge sharing from the sender’s perspective and knowledge seeking (reuse) from
the recipient’s perspective. This is addressed in sub research question 5 in this thesis and
is reflected in Publications IV and V.
Ability indicates an individual’s capabilities, skills, and knowledge possessed or required
to perform a task effectively (Blumberg and Pringle, 1982; Rothschild, 1999). Although
motivation may initiate the willingness of the sender to share knowledge and the
willingness of the recipient to seek and use/reuse the knowledge, it is difficult to take
action without the ability to do so. From the knowledge sender’s perspective, the
disseminative capacity, i.e., the ability to make knowledge understandable for the
recipient and diffuse the knowledge can facilitate successful knowledge sharing (Parent,
Roy, and St. Jacques, 2007; Reagans and McEvily, 2003), which to some extent depends
on the sender’s existing knowledge base (Szulanski, 1996). With expertise and
experience, i.e., both in-depth knowledge and a broader knowledge base, higher quality
knowledge that is more accurate and comprehensive can be provided by the sender and
shared with others (Haas and Hansen, 2007; Minbaeva, 2013). This is also related to the
ability required of the knowledge recipient, i.e., the absorptive capacity. Absorptive
capacity refers to the ability to recognize the value of the knowledge, acquire it, assimilate
it, and apply it, which is highly determined by the prior related knowledge possessed by
the sender (Cohen and Levinthal, 1990; Zahra and George 2002). A higher absorptive
capacity enables knowledge recipients to identify useful knowledge relating to their
expertise and apply it more easily (Reagans and McEvily, 2003). This is especially true
in the case of the reuse of knowledge through an electronic repository due to the required
relevant background knowledge for the application of the new knowledge (Haas and
Hansen, 2007).
In addition, a better capability in knowledge sharing and reuse will increase self-
confidence (Lin, 2007), thus motivating further knowledge sharing and reuse (Reinholt
et al, 2011) and enriching the expertise and experience of the individuals, and finally
increasing their disseminative capacity and absorptive capacity. As indicated by
Szulanski (1996), lack of ability is more likely to impede knowledge reuse compared to
lack of motivation. Therefore, continuous learning to enhance ability is crucial, which is
2 Theoretical background 54
consistent with Siemsen, Roth, and Balasubramanian (2008) who argue that ability is not
a fixed capability, rather it can be improved through training, effort, and experience
(Siemsen et al., 2008).
Personal related factors, i.e., motivation and ability, are not enough to ensure efficient
knowledge sharing and reuse, as opportunities are necessary in these processes (Blumberg
and Pringle, 1982; Siemsen et al., 2008). Opportunity is used to capture exogenous and
environmental factors that enable or inhibit people to act (Rothschild, 1999). In the
context of knowledge management, Siemsen, Roth, and Balasubramanian (2008) defined
the opportunity to share knowledge as a combination of direct and uncontrollable factors
surrounding the individuals and their task environment which enable or inhibit them to
share knowledge with their colleagues. Using time availability, i.e., the degree to which
an individual has slack time available at work, to proxy the opportunity to share
knowledge, opportunity was found to be positively related to the intention to sharing
knowledge, and this effect was even more significant when opportunity was the
constraining factor, i.e. the opportunity was the bottleneck between motivation, ability
and opportunity (Siemsen et al., 2008).
More available opportunities will enable more actions. Organizational culture is one
important opportunity-related factor in knowledge sharing and reuse which is indicated
in the literature, which can influence employees’ behavior by specifying norms, attitudes,
and beliefs as to how they should behave (Argote et al., 2003; Lee and Choi, 2010). A
learning culture treats learning as an investment rather than a cost in the company so that
knowledge is constantly used to improve the current situation, which promotes
knowledge sharing and reuse (Mueller, 2014).
In addition to the organizational culture, more and better information and
communications technology (ICT) tools can lead to more knowledge sharing and reuse
opportunities by making the distribution of knowledge easier and improving the
accessibility to the knowledge (Alavi and Leidner, 2001; Choi et al., 2010). The term ICT
covers a variety of technologies such as the cloud, computers, databases, data mining
systems, decision support system, e-mail, groupware, the internet, search engines, and
social media etc. (Andreadis, Fourtounis, and Bouzakis, 2015; Chai and Nebus, 2012;
Hislop, 2009; Leonardi, Huysman, and Steinfield, 2013), which is almost the only viable
mechanism to effectively connect a large number of geographically dispersed people. ICT
tools bring awareness (i.e., the recipients know where to find the knowledge),
accessibility (i.e., it is easy to access the knowledge), availability (i.e., knowledge can be
accessed and used wherever it is needed), and timeliness (i.e., knowledge can be accessed
and used whenever it is needed) (Offsey, 1997), all of which can facilitate knowledge
sharing and reuse in the company. With the support from ICT tools, the knowledge sender
and recipient can interact in real time, thus facilitating knowledge transfer (Choi et al.,
2010). Especially during the last decade, social media has become a trend which has
shaped individuals’ behavior of sharing and reuse thanks to its capability in terms of
communication, collaboration, connectivity, completing and combining (Treem and
Leonardi, 2012; Vuori, 2011). The unique characteristics of social media can help to
2.2 Knowledge management in the PSS context in the digital era 55
overcome traditional barriers to knowledge transfer (McAfee, 2006). For instance,
transparency, which refers to the degree to which the users believe that social media can
provide accurate, comprehensive and reliable information about the current and past
behavior of all members (Parameswaran and Whinston, 2007), is highly related to both
knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse. From the knowledge sender’s perspective,
sharing high quality knowledge will be visible to all the members, which thus increases
the reputation and credibility of the sender (Ardichvili, Cardozo, and Ray, 2003) and leads
to more willingness to share. At the same time, transparency makes it difficult to hide
poor knowledge contributions (Dalsgaard and Paulsen, 2009), thus motivating the
knowledge sender to share high quality knowledge. From the knowledge recipient’s
perspective, transparency enables the knowledge recipient to identify and evaluate the
quality of the knowledge by viewing the sender’s records and other members’ comments,
thus saving time and effort in the knowledge seeking process. In addition, transparency
enables the recipient to view the sender’s profile, friend list, and past behaviors in the
system, thus the recipient can better evaluate the credibility of the sender. A sender being
the recipient’s friend or friend’s friend will make the recipient willing to trust the sender,
and the positive comments from others on the sender’s past behavior can allow the
recipient to trust the quality of knowledge provided by the sender, thus increasing the
possibility of acquiring knowledge from the sender.
Influencing factors related to mechanism selection summarized in the Technology
Acceptance Model
In order to have a better understanding of knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse in the
company, the mechanism selection is important because a sufficiently adequate adoption
of the mechanism can facilitate knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse. First proposed
by Davis (1985), the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) has been used in many
studies to predict users’ acceptance of information systems. In TAM, two concepts are
specified, namely perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use, as determinants of
usage intentions and towards actual use.
According to Davis (1985), perceived usefulness refers to the degree to which people
believe that using certain systems can improve their job performance, which has a direct
impact on the technology adoption. In the context of knowledge sharing and knowledge
reuse, the perceived usefulness of a knowledge transfer mechanism can be reflected in
the perceived reach and richness of the mechanism, as explained in section 2.2.3. Both
richness and reach are related to the characteristics of knowledge, such as how tacit it is,
etc. The more tacit the knowledge is, the more time will be required for the sender to
explain it and for the recipient to learn it (Argote, 2013; Levin and Cross, 2004). It will
also require greater interaction and socialization between the knowledge sender and
recipient when transferring the knowledge (Santoro and Saparito, 2006), which leads to
the preference for the adoption of a mechanism with a high degree of richness. Therefore,
a mechanism with a high degree of richness, such as personnel movement, allowing the
knowledge sender and recipient to interact directly over a relatively long period of time,
will be perceived as more useful for the transfer of tacit knowledge. Compared to this, a
2 Theoretical background 56
mechanism with a high degree of reach, such as an electronic knowledge repository,
allowing more people to access the knowledge when needed by overcoming geographical,
temporal, and hierarchical obstacles, will be perceived as more useful for transferring
codified knowledge.
The perceived ease of use has been measured from different perspectives, including being
easy-to-use, easy-to-learn, easy to become skillful, flexible to interact with (Gefen and
Straub, 2000; Segars and Grover, 1993), which can be categorized into the physical or
mental effort required, and how easy it is to learn a system. Using a mechanism that
requires less physical and mental effort will be more likely to be accepted by the user.
Similarly, a mechanism that is easier to learn will be more likely to be used.
The conceptual TAM used in this thesis is shown in Figure 7.
Figure 7. The Technology Acceptance Model in a knowledge management context
(adapted from Davis, 1985)
Knowledge sharing and reuse can enhance mutual learning, promote best practices,
reduce operational costs, and facilitate organizational innovation (Ahmad, 2017; Markus,
2001; Oliveira et al., 2019; Reychav and Weisberg, 2009). However, knowledge sharing
and reuse does not happen naturally (Davenport and Prusak, 1998), and it normally cannot
be forced by managers (Afshar-Jalili and Salemipour, 2019). In the existing literature,
only a few studies have investigated the influencing factors concerning knowledge
sharing and reuse systematically (Filieri and Alguezaui, 2015) making it hard to enhance
knowledge sharing and reuse in the firm. This motivated the author to investigate the
enablers and barriers to knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse, which are addressed in
sub research question 5 and reflected in Publications IV and V.
2.2.5 Knowledge sharing and reuse in PSS in the digital era
In the PSS context, products are dealt with not only within the manufacturing company,
but also in a distributed, mobile, and collaborative environment beyond the company's
2.2 Knowledge management in the PSS context in the digital era 57
boundaries throughout the entire product lifecycle (PLC) phases (Cai et al., 2014), where
multiple stakeholders with certain responsibilities are integrated to create the extended
value-creation networks (Mert et al., 2016). Companies, especially PSS providers, are
more PLC-oriented than traditional manufacturers, because all the relevant stakeholders
must collaborate to provide the customer solution, i.e., an integrated product and service
(Aurich et al., 2006). This almost inevitably requires a holistic information exchange
between R&D (designers), manufacturers, users, and even recyclers (Terzi et al., 2010).
Moreover, with the development of digitalization, the complexity is growing increasingly
of products, processes, value creation networks and IT environments. Additionally, the
volume of data is becoming extremely large, and the forms of data are incredibly diverse,
which make it more difficult to manage the information (Li et al., 2015; Stark et al., 2014).
Being able to interchange, share, and manage internal and external knowledge from
different PLC phases with multiple disciplines has become increasingly challenging for
PSS providers (Figay et al., 2012; Yang and Song, 2009; Zhang et al., 2012) and it is
considered critical to the PSS providers (Bermell-Garcia and Fan, 2008).
With digitalization, the trend of relying on virtualization and outsourcing require
companies to manage information and knowledge from different departments, different
partners, and different information systems and repackage them as an integrated product
to customers (Figay et al., 2012), which is essentially the process of knowledge sharing
and knowledge reuse as defined in this thesis. In the PSS context, various stakeholders
play their roles throughout the product lifecycle phases with different knowledge
requirements and strategies. Although research on PSS design, evaluation, and operation
methods has progressed well, there are only a limited number of studies concerning
knowledge management practice in PSS operations (Qu et al., 2016).
Although PSS is considered more sustainable for the company and for society, however,
some drawbacks of PSS have been raised, such as the rebound effects from the prolonged
product life in the use-oriented PSS (Chierici and Copani, 2016). The rebound effect
describes a situation in which an expected decrease of resource usage due to the use of
innovative solutions does not occur because of changes in behavior (Berkhout, Muskens,
and Velthuijsen, 2000). Compared with new products, reused products in the use-oriented
PSS may be more harmful to the environment, which requires PSS providers to constantly
update and enhance the functionalities and performance of the product to counteract the
rebound effect (Chierici and Copani, 2016). This is essentially the main objective of
knowledge sharing and reuse, which is even more important in the PSS context compared
to a traditional product offering company (Goh and McMahon, 2009). However, only a
limited number of studies on knowledge sharing and reuse have been conducted in the
PSS context, especially from a PLC perspective, and those few exceptions have mainly
focused on knowledge sharing and reuse in the BOL phase with limited attention paid to
the MOL phase empirically (Baxter et al., 2009; Cai et al., 2014; Durst and Evangelista,
2018). For instance, the importance of reusing MOL knowledge (e.g., in-service
information) to continuously improve the product-service offering has been emphasized
by various researchers. In particular, MOL knowledge, especially in-service information,
should be reused collectively to achieve greater value (Goh and McMahon, 2009).
2 Theoretical background 58
However, most of the current studies have focused on the importance and usefulness of
using MOL knowledge in the BOL phase for current product improvement and future
new product design to increase the through-life performance of the product (i.e.
Hassanain, Al-Hammad, and Fatayer, 2014; Igba, Alemzadeh, Gibbons, and Henningsen,
2015; Jagtap, Johnson, Aurisicchio, and Wallace, 2007; Roy, Mehnen, Addepalli,
Redding, Tinsley, and Okoh, 2014). In fact, using MOL knowledge to improve the quality
and the consistency of the service provided is feasible (Márquez and Herguedas, 2004).
From the PSS providers’ perspective, they must support their customers and ensure the
usefulness of their product throughout the entire PLC. Therefore, it is valuable to
investigate knowledge sharing and reuse further in the MOL phase. In particular,
comparing the similarities and differences of knowledge sharing and reuse in both BOL
and MOL phases would not only enrich the PSS research, but also refine the knowledge
management research. This motivated the author to investigate knowledge sharing and
reuse in the PSS context from a PLC perspective, especially focusing on the beginning-
of-life and middle-of-life phases, which are addressed in sub research questions 3 to 6
and are reflected in Publications III, IV and V.
The increased digitalization of work has led to more networked and knowledge-based
practices in the company (Jonsson et al., 2018). Digitalization has revolutionized the
means of communication and enables access to huge amounts of information resources
as well as the related data analysis (Kankanhalli et al., 2003), which provides alternative
tools to implement knowledge management strategies. For example, to increase the
quality of early design decisions, Bertoni and Larsson (2011) introduced Web 2.0 tools
to help overcome knowledge sharing barriers between complex and cross-functional
design teams (Bertoni and Larsson, 2011). Another example is social media. By allowing
the creation and exchange of user-generated content, it and has been increasingly adopted
by companies and can even been seen as an informal knowledge management tool to
manage knowledge within and beyond the company’s boundaries (Leonardi et al., 2013;
Treem and Leonardi, 2012; Von Krogh, 2012). Providing a natural combination of
codification (i.e. person-to-document) and personalization (i.e. person-to-person)
knowledge management strategies, social media may help overcome the barriers to
knowledge transfer through traditional mechanisms and could enable more effective and
efficient knowledge transfer between knowledge senders and the potential recipients
(Chai and Nebus, 2012; Hansen et al., 1999).
Although digitalization has the potential to facilitate knowledge management, the
application of information technology tools cannot guarantee the success of knowledge
management (Hendriks, 2001). For instance, information overload may increase the
difficulty in finding essential information and may also increase the risk of
misunderstanding information, this may result in impeded knowledge sharing and reuse
in the company (Vuori, Helander, and Okkonen, 2019). Therefore, it is valuable to
investigate the impact of digitalization on knowledge management practices/strategies,
especially knowledge sharing and reuse, in detail and find suitable ways to make
digitalization play a greater role in knowledge management (Markus, 2001). This is
2.2 Knowledge management in the PSS context in the digital era 59
addressed in sub research questions 2 and 6 and is reflected in Publications III, IV, and
V.
Table 4 summarizes the insights from the literature as a whole and their relation to the
research questions.
Table 4. Insights from the literature and their relation to the research questions
Research question Insights from the literature
SQ1: What is the current
state of empirical studies on
PSS and what are the focuses
of these studies?
PSS research has been progressing well as a research field spreading
across various disciplines, research domains, and geographical areas.
However, empirical evaluation of the tools and methods has been scarce,
and the number of empirical studies is limited. Therefore, it would be
beneficial to have a better understanding of PSS practice so that the
application of PSS as well as the benefits realized from PSS could be
clearly identified.
This motivated the author to conduct a literature review focusing on
empirical PSS studies, which was addressed by sub research question 1.
SQ2: How does digitalization
influence PLM in the PSS
context when treating PLM
as the implementation of a
knowledge management
strategy?
SQ6: How does digitalization
influence the above-
mentioned requirements,
strategies/practices, and
enablers/barriers in the
above-mentioned context?
Digitalization has the potential to reduce resource usage, facilitate the
circular economy, and improve the product-service offering from PLC
perspective. Mostly, however, the existing studies focused on the BOL
phase, especially design, whereas other PLC phases were seldom
investigated. Product data collection in practice is still restricted to
sensor-generated data, while excluding or seldom considering other
types of information on MOL or EOL phases. Therefore, research is
needed regarding the types of other product data/information required to
improve the product-service offering throughout the entire PLC.
In addition, although digitalization has the potential to facilitate
knowledge management, the application of information technology
tools cannot guarantee the success of knowledge management.
Therefore, it is valuable to investigate the impact of digitalization on
knowledge management practices/strategies, especially knowledge
sharing and reuse, in detail and find suitable ways to make digitalization
play a greater role in knowledge management.
The above-mentioned discussion motivated the author to further
investigate the impact of digitalization in the PSS context, which is
addressed by sub research questions 2 and 6.
SQ3: What is the current
state of the art of knowledge
management practices in PSS
from a PLC perspective?
SQ4: What are the
knowledge requirements,
knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse
Some studies have been conducted from the PLC perspective in the PSS
context. However, the empirical studies mostly focused on exemplary
cases, and most of the publications were conceptual papers, indicating
that empirical studies on PSS from a PLC perspective were limited. This
motivated the author to conduct studies on PSS from a PLC perspective,
which are addressed in sub research questions 3 to 6.
Knowledge management has been identified as a challenge for PSS
providers. However, only a limited number of studies on knowledge
2 Theoretical background 60
strategies/practices in
different PLC phases in the
PSS context?
SQ5: What are the enablers
and barriers to knowledge
sharing and knowledge reuse
in different PLC phases in the
PSS context?
SQ6: How does digitalization
influence the above-
mentioned requirements,
strategies/practices, and
enablers/barriers in the
above-mentioned context?
management, more specifically knowledge sharing and reuse, have been
conducted in the PSS context, especially from a PLC perspective, and
those few exceptions have mainly focused on knowledge sharing and
reuse in the BOL phase with limited attention paid to the MOL phase
empirically. In fact, using MOL knowledge to improve the quality and
the consistency of the service provided is feasible. From the PSS
providers’ perspective, they must support their customers and ensure the
usefulness of their product throughout the entire PLC. Therefore, it is
valuable to investigate knowledge sharing and reuse further in the MOL
phase.In particular, comparing the similarities and differences of
knowledge sharing and reuse in both BOL and MOL phases would not
only enrich the PSS research, but also refine the knowledge management
research. This motivated the author to investigate knowledge sharing
and reuse in the PSS context from a PLC perspective, especially
focusing on the beginning-of-life and middle-of-life phases, which are
addressed in sub research questions 3 to 6.
SQ5: What are the enablers
and barriers to knowledge
sharing and knowledge reuse
in different PLC phases in the
PSS context?
Knowledge sharing and reuse does not happen naturally, and it normally
cannot be forced by managers. In the existing literature, only a few
studies have investigated the influencing factors concerning knowledge
sharing and reuse systematically, making it hard to enhance knowledge
sharing and reuse in the firm. This motivated the author to investigate
the enablers and barriers to knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse.
Although certain motivators have similar impacts on both knowledge
sharing and knowledge seeking, there are different motivations for
knowledge sharing and seeking as well. Therefore, it is valuable to
further investigate the influencing factors for knowledge sharing from
the sender’s perspective and knowledge seeking (reuse) from the
recipient’s perspective.
The insights above are addressed in sub research question 5.
61
3 Methodology and research design
This chapter first describes the philosophical assumptions and methodological
considerations that have guided this research. Then, the selected research methods, data
collection and analysis methods will be presented. Finally, the evaluation of the overall
research quality will be discussed.
3.1 Methodological considerations
Recognizing and understanding the philosophical assumptions about reality that the
research relies on plays a large role in determining the appropriate research approach and
the entire research course for the topic in question (Creswell, 2014). In general, the basic
philosophical assumptions to define a particular research paradigm in social research are
basic beliefs about ontology, epistemology, axiology, and methodology (Creswell, 2013;
Guba and Lincoln, 1994; Neuman, 2014). They are inextricably linked as the ontological
views, epistemological standing points, and axiological positions guide the
methodological selection (Braun and Clarke, 2013; Morgan, 2007).
Ontology is one of the most fundamental branches of metaphysics and can be defined as
‘the study of being’ (Crotty, 2003, p.10). It concerns the assumptions about the nature of
reality and its characteristics (Creswell, 2013) and determines how the researcher sees the
world of business and the choice of what to research (Saunders et al., 2019). Ontological
considerations range between realist approaches, where reality is seen in an objective
manner that is independent of people’s beliefs and involves the perspective of objectivism,
and subjectivist approaches, in which reality is seen in a subjective manner that is social
constructed by people and with the perspective of subjectivism (Bryman, 2012; Creswell,
2014). In studies on social actors, the latter is also referred to as constructionism (Eriksson
and Kovalainen, 2016).
Epistemology is a philosophical study of the nature of knowledge which concerns of what
is (or should be) regarded as acceptable and legitimate knowledge and how it can be
communicated (Bryman and Bell, 2011; Burrell and Morgan, 1979). It emphasizes the
relationship between the researcher and the reality (Symon and Cassell, 2012), i.e., what
is perceived/known to be true as classified by the researcher (Hallebone and Priest, 2009).
As with ontology, epistemology ranges between objectivist and subjectivist perspectives
(Braun and Clarke, 2013). The objectivist perspective asserts that true and observable
facts exists in the external world, whereas the subjectivist perspective states that the world
is built on observations and individuals’ interpretations (Eriksson and Kovalainen, 2016).
In business research, the main categories in epistemological positions are positivism,
realism and interpretivism (Bryman and Bell, 2011). The positivist and realist paradigms
of knowledge rely on objectivism and aim to explain phenomena, whereas an interpretive
paradigm emphasizes the subjective meanings of social action and aims to understand the
social world (ibid.).
3 Methodology and research design 62
Axiology is applicable in qualitative research and concerns the role of values and ethics
within the research process (Saunders, Lewis, and Thornhill, 2019). It is related to the
assumptions on how researchers position their values and goals in research, and it
acknowledges the existence of biases (Creswell, 2013). The researcher’s values may be
reflected in the selected philosophy. In order to increase the credibility of the research, it
is important for researchers to understand axiology as it enables researchers to articulate
their values as a basis for judging the ongoing research (Heron, 1996).
Methodology is a series of choices that describe how to conduct the research (Braun and
Clarke, 2013), referring to the research design, research process, and the selection of the
research methods (Eriksson and Kovalainen, 2016). Broadly, it includes data collection,
data analysis, participant selection, and the instruments used. The methodology used in
research is significantly influenced by the ontological, epistemological and axiological
positions (Morgan, 2007).
In business and management research, no single ‘best’ research philosophy exists as each
philosophy plays a unique role and makes a valuable contribution to seeing the
organizational world (Saunders et al., 2019). With its multi-dimensional nature and
multidisciplinary context, business and management research has absorbed philosophies
ranging from natural sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities (Saunders et al.,
2019). Therefore, the research philosophies adopted are scattered in a continuum between
the objectivist and subjectivist extremes (Niglas, 2010). The ontological, epistemological,
axiological, and methodological assumptions of the much-discussed philosophical
positions, or research paradigms, are summarized in Table 5.
Table 5. Key research philosophies/paradigms in business studies (modified from Crotty,
2003; Guba and Lincoln, 1994; Järvensivu and Törnroos, 2010; Saunders et al., 2019)
Positivism
(explanation /
verification)
Postpositivism
(Prediction)
Social
constructionism
/Interpretivism
(understanding
/interpretation)
Pragmatism
(Dialectic)
Ontology
(the nature of
reality or being)
What is reality?
Naive realism –
“real” reality but
understandable
External,
objective, and
independent of
social actors
One true reality
(universalism)
exists which can
be measured and
known
Critical realism –
“real” reality but
only imperfectly
and
probabilistically
understood
External,
independent
Relativism –
reality is local and
socially
constructed and
co-constructed
Subjective, differs
from person to
person
Multiple realities
Reality is constantly
renegotiated and
interpreted in light of
what is most useful
Reality is the practical
consequence of ideas
Non-singular reality
Epistemology
(what
constitutes
Objectivist –
findings true
Modified
objectivist –
Subjectivist –
findings are
Truth is the
knowledge/theory
3.1 Methodological considerations
63
63
acceptable
knowledge and
how knowledge
claims are
justified)
How can I know
reality?
Law-like
generalizations
findings probably
true
Objective reality
shaped by the
individuals’
subjective views
constructed
/created
Interpretation
made by
researchers are
shaped by their
own experiences
and background
which enables
successful action
The best approach is
one that solves the
problem
Focus on practical
applied research,
integrating different
perspectives to help
interpret the data
Axiology
(the role of
values)
How should we
deal with the
values of our
own and our
research
participants?
Value-free: the
researcher is
detached, neutral
and independent
of the researched
Value-laden: the
researcher
acknowledges
bias due to world
views
Facts about social
reality are
inseparable from
values
The researcher
tries to minimize
bias/errors
Value-bound:
researchers are
part of what is
researched
The researcher
recognizes bias
and negotiates the
shared
interpretations and
worldviews with
the participants
Interpretations,
meanings,
motivations and
values of social
actors, structures
and patterns
Value-driven:
conducting research
that benefits people
Multiple stances
Research based on
intended
consequences
Methodology
(the process of
research)
How to find it
out?
Experimental
/manipulative,
verification of
hypotheses,
chiefly
quantitative
methods
Modified
experimental
/manipulative,
critical
multiplism,
falsification of
hypotheses, may
include
quantitative and
qualitative
methods
Hermeneutical,
interpretivism,
qualitative
methods
Determined by the
research problem and
the research question
and is action-oriented
Mixed or multiple
method designs
Using all approaches
available to
understand the
problem
Positivism is commonly related to the use of quantitative research methods to establish
generalizable data about social phenomena (Punch, 2013). It also states that only one
objective reality is out there to be found and is not affected by the investigator (Hanson
and Grimmer, 2007). With the philosophical stance of a natural scientist, the positivist
paradigm cannot be fully applied in the context of the social world which involves human
beings, thus another paradigm is derived, i.e., postpositivism. Being viewed as a variant
of positivism, postpositivism assumes that reality is objective but only ‘imperfectly and
probabilistically apprehendable’ (Guba and Lincoln, 1994, p. 109). Therefore, researchers
in social science adopting a postpositivist position take a scientific approach to research
based on a priori theories. They assume that there are multiple realities and cause and
3 Methodology and research design 64
effect is a probability (Creswell, 2013) and speculate that the perception of the existence
of objective reality is restricted by human cognition (Guba and Lincoln, 2005).
In contrast to the previous two stands, social constructionism (also described as
interpretivism, see e.g., Denzin and Lincoln, 2011) assumes a subjective nature of reality
and states that knowledge is shared among individuals and created in interaction
(Hibberd, 2005). Creating new and richer understandings and interpretations of social
worlds is the objective of social constructionist research (Saunders et al., 2019).
Therefore, researchers with a constructionist perspective normally employ qualitative
research methods to obtain an in-depth understanding of a given phenomenon in its
specific context (Hanson and Grimmer, 2007) by addressing the interaction processes
between individuals and positioning themselves in the research (Creswell, 2013). Social
constructionism (or interpretivism) is the philosophical positioning of this thesis.
Pragmatism was proposed by philosophers who believed that a mono-paradigmatic
orientation of research was not good enough, rather, they felt that a worldview that would
provide research methods that could be considered more suitable to study the current
phenomena was needed (Tashakkori and Teddlie, 2003; Patton, 2014). Aiming to provide
practical solutions for informed future practice, the research of pragmatist often starts
with a problem which later determines the research design and strategy (Saunders et al.,
2019). With the emphasis on the outcomes of the research including actions, situations,
and consequences (Creswell, 2014), pragmatists advocate the use of mixed methods to
undertake research (Saunders et al., 2019).
As suggested by Guba and Lincoln (1994), the research paradigm selected should be the
one whose assumptions are best met by the phenomenon under investigation. The
philosophical positioning, or research paradigm adopted in this thesis is social
constructionism, or interpretivism. The reasons for this are explained as follows.
Knowledge is the focus of this thesis. Particularly, this thesis is devoted to exploring the
phenomenon of knowledge movement, especially knowledge sharing and knowledge
reuse in the PSS context from the PLC perspective. The ‘traditional’ idea of knowledge
treats knowledge as a justified true belief in that people can claim knowledge only when
an adequate justification for the beliefs can be provided (Ladyman, 2002). This view of
knowledge is closely related to mode 1 of knowledge as specified by Gibbons, Limoges,
Nowotny, Schwartzman, Scott, and Trow (1994) in which knowledge is formed in
especially academic communities and which emphasizes theoretical knowledge. In
addition to this, mode 2 of knowledge refers to production of knowledge in more practice-
emphasized surroundings and concerns the practical (pragmatic) application of
knowledge. This view of knowledge is context-driven, problem-oriented, and often
involves multidisciplinary processes (Gibbons et al., 1994; Harmaakorpi and Melkas
2012). Both modes of knowledge highlight the relativism of knowledge. That is, to
become knowledge, information, observations, theory, and ideas needs to be accepted by
a community. In other words, subjective assessment by human is indispensable for
knowledge. Therefore, this thesis adopts a relativist ontological stance and treats the topic
under research as subjective.
3.2 Research approach and methodological choices
65
65
The objective of the current study is to understand how and why knowledge is shared and
reused in the company and to offer both theoretical and managerial insights into this
phenomenon. This aligns with the objectives of an interpretive view as interpretivism
facilitates an understanding of how and why and is appropriate when researching social
processes (Bryman and Bell, 2011). Both knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse
require a collaborative effort between the knowledge sender and the knowledge receiver.
The influencing factors of effective and efficient knowledge sharing and reuse depends
not only on the knowledge being shared/reused, the mechanism used, the network
structure, but also on the capability of the sender/receiver, implying the socially
constructed nature of the knowledge sharing and reuse process. To fulfill the research
objectives, as a researcher, the author acknowledges that she needs to rely as much as
possible on the participants’ view of the phenomenon. At the same time, her own prior
understanding of this phenomenon will influence the interpretation of the results,
therefore it is necessary to minimize this kind of bias. In addition, the current study
intends to improve the efficacy of knowledge sharing and reuse based on how it works
now, rather than radically challenging the current position. Therefore, it should be
categorized as regulation research (Burrell and Morgan, 2016).
Based on the discussion above and combining the trend of adopting descriptive methods
in knowledge management research, the researcher thus treats herself as a social
constructivist and positions the current study as an interpretive research among the four
paradigms for organizational analysis proposed by Burrell and Morgan(2016) as shown
in Figure 8.
Figure 8. Positioning of this study in relation to the four paradigms for organizational
studies (adapted from Burrell and Morgan, 2016)
3.2 Research approach and methodological choices
This section presents the research approach and methodological choices of the empirical
part of the thesis. The research approach refers to research plans and procedures spanning
Radical
humanist
Radical
structuralist
Interpretive Functionalist
Subjectivist Objectivist
Regulation
Radical change
3 Methodology and research design 66
steps from broad assumptions to detailed data collection, analysis and interpretation
methods and generally includes quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods approaches
(Creswell, 2014). Quantitative research approaches aim to test objective theories by
examining the relationship between measurable variables through statistical analysis of
numerical data (Creswell, 2014). Usually, a quantitative study relies on standardized
procedures that can be replicated to test the hypotheses deductively and with the ability
to generalize the findings (Creswell, 2014; Neuman, 2014). In contrast, qualitative
research approaches enable researchers to study social and human problems by
conducting detailed examinations of specific cases raised in the natural flow of social life
(Creswell, 2014; Neuman, 2014). A qualitative study usually uses non-standardized
methods that can be adapted for each participant or case to generate emergent categories
and theories inductively during the research process by taking the maximum advantage
of the participants’ perianal insight (Neuman, 2014). Combining deduction and induction
and moving back-and-forth between theory and data, abductive theory development in
qualitative studies matches what many business and management researchers actually do
(Saunders et al., 2019; Suddaby 2006). Treating quantitative and qualitative approaches
as different ends of a continuum, mixed methods approaches reside in the middle by
incorporating elements of both approaches with the assumption that quantitative and
qualitative approaches complement each other (Creswell, 2014).
This thesis is devoted to investigating how and why knowledge is shared and reused in
the company from a product lifecycle (PLC) perspective in the product-service systems
context. Since few of the existing studies concern knowledge sharing and reuse in the
PSS context from the PLC perspective, this thesis is essentially an exploratory study as it
aims to extend existing theory (Eisenhardt, 1989; Yin, 2014) and seek new insights into
the phenomena under investigation (Saunders, 2011). Considering the subjective and
context dependent nature of knowledge sharing and reuse in the company, and aligning
with the paradigm stance (social constructionism, or interpretivism), overall, a qualitative
research approach was considered as the primary choice to employ. However, the author
complemented the predominant approach with a descriptive quantitative approach. For
the individual publications of the thesis, careful consideration was taken in selecting the
most appropriate research methods to support the goals of the study. The main empirical
research method used in this thesis is a qualitative case study method (Publication IV and
V) complemented by a quantitative survey (Publication V). In addition, systematic
literature reviews (conceptual research approach) were conducted to establish a state-of-
the-art understanding of the knowledge management practices throughout the PLC in the
existing empirical studies (Publication I and III) as well as the impact of digitalization on
product lifecycle management (Publication II), therefore not only revealing the research
gaps, but also permitting point-of-view comparisons between the existing literature and
the results of the empirical part of this thesis.
The methodological choices in the individual publications are summarized in Table 6 on
next page and will be described in more detail in the following sub-sections.
3.2 Research approach and methodological choices
67
67
Table 6. Overview of the methodological choices in the individual publications
Publication I Publication II Publication III Publication IV Publication V
Title Empirical
studies on
product-
service
systems – A
systematic
literature
review
The impact of
digitalization
on product
lifecycle
management:
How to deal
with it?
Knowledge
management in
product-service
systems – A
product lifecycle
perspective
Dealing with
knowledge
management
practices in
different product
lifecycle phases
within product-
service systems
Sharing and reusing
knowledge for innovation
and competitiveness in
PSS
Research
objective
To analyze the
current state of
the empirical
studies on PSS
and provide
possible
research
directions/con
siderations for
future
empirical PSS
studies.
To identify the
impact of
digitalization
on PLM and
provide
suggestions
for
manufacturing
companies to
respond and
keep
competitive in
the digital era.
To analyze KM
practices
throughout the
PLC and raise
propositions for
both academia
and
practitioners, as
well as provide
guidelines to the
doctoral
candidate to
further
investigate this
topic.
To investigate
knowledge
requirements,
knowledge
sharing, and
knowledge reuse
in
manufacturing
companies and
logistics
companies in the
PSS context
from different
stakeholders’
perspectives and
the impact of
digitalization on
the above topics.
To investigate KM
practice in the BOL and
MOL phases from the
PSS provider’s
perspective. In particular,
to identify similarities
and differences in
knowledge requirements,
knowledge sharing, and
knowledge reuse within
and between BOL and
MOL phases, the
influencing factors of
knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse, and the
impact of digitalization
on the above topics.
Research
approach
Conceptual Conceptual Conceptual Qualitative Qualitative,
complemented by a
quantitative approach
Research
purpose
Exploratory Exploratory Exploratory Exploratory Exploratory
Research
strategy
N/A N/A N/A Abductive Abductive
Research
method
Systematic
literature
review
Systematic
literature
review
Systematic
literature review
Multiple case
study
Multiple case study
complemented by a
questionnaire survey
Sampling
strategy
Purposeful Purposeful
Data
collection
70 peer-
reviewed
journal articles
published
between 2006
and 2016
35 journal
articles and
conference
papers
published
between 1999
and 2017
58 journal
articles and
conference
papers published
between 1995
and 2017
Six semi-
structured
interviews in
three
manufacturing
companies and
three logistics
companies.
Twenty-seven semi-
structured interviews in
eleven companies and
supplementary
questionnaire survey.
Data
analysis
Qualitative data
analysis
Qualitative data analysis
and complemented by
descriptive quantitative
data analysis
3 Methodology and research design 68
3.2.1 Systematic literature review
The research process began with systematic literature reviews which are organized
around the first three sub research questions and to identify research gaps for further
investigation. Through a systematic literature review, a large volume of disparate
literature can be examined critically to assure the rigor of the research (Tranfield, Denyer
and Smart, 2003). The online abstract and citation database Scopus was used to find the
relevant body of literature for all the three literature review articles because it was
perceived to cover a wider range of recent academic literature (published after 1995)
compared to the Web of Science database (Falagas, Pitsouni, Malietzis, and Pappas,
2008) and covers multidisciplinary research from more than 5000 major and minor
publishers (Scopus facts sheet, 2019). This time span and multidisciplinary research
studies matches the literature requirement in this thesis. In addition, all these three articles
used the systematic literature selection process because of its replicability and
transparency (Tranfield et al., 2003).
Although the adoption of systematic literature review contributes to establish overall and
a state-of-the-art understanding of the research topic by consolidating extant research,
establishing connections in the disparate literature, and identifying gaps between different
research streams (Crossan and Apaydin, 2010), the existence of its potential weakness
related to literature selection should be kept in mind. To some extent, the findings from
the systematic literature review may overlook some contributions from the existing
literature as the detailed search was undertook in citation databases and limited to journal
articles and conference papers. If a discipline prefers publish books and book chapters
(such as sociology), such systematic literature review may potentially fail to notice these
contributions (Pittaway et al., 2004). Meanwhile, it takes a lot of time and effort to filter
a large volume of articles, therefore some articles will be excluded from the final list due
to poorly written abstracts (Pittaway et al., 2004). In addition, during the review process,
the reviewer’s personal preferences and expertise can affect the outcome of the literature
review as all the decisions concerning inclusions and exclusions are eventually executed
on the premises of the reviewer’s preference and expertise, albeit based on the pre-defined
criteria. However, it is believed that although some relevant research may be overlooked,
the rigorous systematic literature review procedure can greatly reduce the possibility that
those omitted studies will have a serious impact on the results (Crossan and Apaydin,
2010).
The four-stage literature selection process is shown in Figure 9, and the detailed
procedures for each of the review articles will be discussed in the following paragraphs.
In all the reviews, only articles written in English were included, and the keyword search
was limited to “title, abstract and keywords”.
3.2 Research approach and methodological choices
69
69
Figure 9. Systematic literature selection process
Data collection and analysis
The objective of Publication I was to understand the current state of the empirical studies
of PSS. Therefore the key word search strings used were limited to ‘product service
system*’, ‘product-service system*’, ‘empirical*’, ‘operation*’, and ‘appl*’, and the
years of publication were limited to between 1995 and 2016 (Publication I was in 2016)
given that PSS has been considerably developed since the late 1990s. The initial 357 peer-
reviewed journal articles were reduced to 70 after reading the titles and abstracts because
mostly articles from the initial search about PSS could not fulfill the inclusion criteria of
real-word empirical studies. None of the 70 articles were excluded from further analysis
after reading the full text and no new articles were added from the reference listed of these
70 articles, thus the final shortlist of the relevant journal articles remained at 70. Although
the initial search was set for articles published since 1995, no relevant articles were found
before 2006.
The data collection procedure of Publication II was similar to Publication I except for
adding snowballing articles from the reference lists. With the objective of identifying the
impact of digitalization on product lifecycle management (PLM), key words related to
digitalization such as ‘digitalization’, ‘digit*’, ‘IoT’, and ‘information technology’ were
combined with the key words related to PLM such as ‘lifecycle’ and ‘life cycle’ for initial
3 Methodology and research design 70
searching. With the significant development of digitalization since 1990s, both journal
articles and conference papers published between 1990 and 2017 (Publication II was
completed in 2016) were considered as potentially relevant articles. The initial 281
articles were then filtered based on the relevance of the title and abstract, and only 28
remained after this process. All 28 articles were kept for further analysis after reading the
full text, and 7 more articles were added from the reference lists of these articles. In total,
35 peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers published between 1999 and
2017were included in the final analysis.
The literature selection for Publication III was different from the previous two and was
more complicated. The objective of Publication III was to look into knowledge
management practices across different PLC phases in the PSS context and raised
propositions on this subject for both academia and practitioners. Therefore, the key words
related to PSS, PLM, and knowledge management, such as ‘product-service system*’,
‘product service system*’, ‘knowledge’, ‘knowledge management’, ‘lifecycle’, and ‘life
cycle’ were used to search relevant journal articles and conference papers published from
1990 to 2017. With only a limited number of articles found, the search strategy was
revised by dividing the entire PLC into the beginning-of-life (design, manufacturing),
middle-of-life (distribution, use and support, i.e., external logistics, repair and
maintenance), and end-of-life (reuse, recycling, remanufacturing, and disposal) phases
with the relevant sub-phases. Still using ‘knowledge’ and ‘knowledge management’ as
the searching strings, relevant articles in each of the PLC phases were identified. Using
the revised search strategy, 1164 articles were produced initially. The number was
reduced to 58 after reading the titles, abstracts, and full texts. After snowballing from the
reference list of the 58 articles, no new articles were added, which made a sample of 58
journal articles and conference papers for final analysis. Table 7 summarizes the literature
selection process for the literature review articles.
Table 7. Summary of literature selection process for the systematic literature review
Publication I Publication II Publication III
Database, search
field, and language
online database Scopus, keyword search in “title, abstract and keywords”, English
Types of articles
and publication
period
Journal articles,
1995~2016
Journal articles and
conference papers,
1990~2017
Journal articles and
conference papers,
1990~2017
Search strings and
articles initially
retrieved
‘product service
system*’, ‘product-
service system*’,
‘empirical*’,
‘operation*’, and
‘appl*’, 357 articles
‘digitalization’, ‘digit*’,
‘lifecycle’, ‘life cycle’,
‘IoT’, and ‘information
technology’, 281 articles
‘knowledge’ and
‘knowledge
management’ combined
with the name of each
PLC sub-phases, 1164
articles
Articles remaining
after filtering by
title, abstract, and
title
Excluded articles with
hypothesized,
exemplar, or simulated
studies, 70 articles
remained
Only articles in
manufacturing
companies and which
treat PLM as a strategy
were included, 28 articles
remained
Only articles dealing with
knowledge management
in manufacturing
companies were
included, 58 articles
remained
3.2 Research approach and methodological choices
71
71
Snowballing from
the reference list
No new articles added 7 articles added No new article added
Final set of articles 70 journal articles
published between 2006
and 2016
35 journal articles and
conference papers
published between 1999
and 2017
58 journal articles and
conference papers
published between 1995
and 2017
3.2.2 Multiple case study
There are different definitions for case study, and one of the most prominent among them
is the one proposed by Yin as ‘an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary
phenomenon within its real life context, especially when the boundaries between the
phenomenon and context are not clearly evident’ (Yin, 2003, p. 13). To make it more fit
for the research practice in industrial marketing, Piekkari, Plakoyiannaki and Welch
(2010) modified the definition as ‘an empirical inquiry that investigates a phenomenon
in its real life context, relating it to theory and seeking to understand what the empirical
phenomenon is a case of in theoretical terms’. Their definitions emphasize the linkage
between case and theory, the evolving nature of case study, and at the same time extend
the scope of the phenomenon being investigated. With a considerable degree of open-
endedness, case study enables researchers to gain rich insights about the focal
phenomenon from intensive materials covering a range of aspects (Cresswell, 2013;
Morgan, 2014).
Case study is more suitable for answering research questions of ‘how’ and ‘why’ in the
absence of extensive fundamental theories (Eisenhardt, 1989) with the selection of both
single in-depth case and multiple cases (Yin, 2014). Case study also suits the investigation
of changing processes, because case study is a flexible and evolving process (Halinen and
Törnroos, 2005). In particular, a multiple case study offers a great standpoint compared
to a single case study for exploratory research as it provides both within case and cross-
case analysis (Yin, 2014). Furthermore, in a multiple case study, the insights from
multiple participants in multiple contexts can enhance the generalizability of the theory
and extend the theory (Saunders et al., 2019). To fulfill this, appropriate case selection is
a vital procedure for a multiple case study (Baxter and Jack, 2008). The most common
sampling strategy in qualitative case research is purposive/purposeful sampling in which
information-rich cases are selected deliberately and studied intensively (Eisenhardt, 1989;
Patton, 2014). No research method is perfect, and the pros and cons of case studies are
summarized in Table 8 on next page.
Publications IV and V of the thesis employ an explorative multiple case study
methodology by considering the research objective, the existing fundamental theories, the
nature of the research questions, the control of the researcher over the phenomena, and
the focus on contemporary or historical events of the phenomena (Eisenhardt , 1989; Yin,
2014). The overall objective of this thesis is to develop a further understanding of
knowledge management practice in the PSS context from a PLC perspective, and the lack
of existing extensive literature on the phenomena calls for an in-depth study to enrich
3 Methodology and research design 72
both knowledge management and PSS research. To fulfill the research objective, the main
research questions in this study are of the ‘how’ and ‘what’ form. In addition, the control
of knowledge management practices, especially knowledge sharing and reuse in this
study, is limited. Focusing on contemporary events in knowledge management practices
is crucial to this study, because only in this way can the data and research make sense to
the real world. Therefore, case study was considered as the most appropriate methodology
to employ in this study as it allows the researcher to dive into the context of the studied
phenomenon and examine the issues in great depth. Focusing on the PLC perspective
naturally requires a cross-case analysis in different PLC phases and sub-phases, and in
different companies, thus a multiple case study methodology was selected. In addition, a
multiple-level analysis was employed (Yin, 2014) in Publication IV and V to investigate
the phenomenon from company and PLC-phase level, respectively.
Table 8. Pros & cons of case studies
Reasoning
Deductive, inductive, and abductive logics are the three main types of reasoning
(Saunders et al., 2019). Research with deductive reasoning logic starts with existing
theories, develops hypotheses or conceptual structure based on theories, and tests them in
an empirical setting for theory generalization (Eriksson and Kovalainen, 2016;
Gummesson, 2000; Saunders et al., 2019). As the reverse of deductive reasoning, research
utilizing inductive reasoning logic starts from empirical observations of particular
instances and moves towards general theory development (Saunders et al., 2019). It is
difficult to clearly distinguish the two reasoning logics in real life research and they can
be used in the same study, which refers to abductive reasoning (Bryman, 2012; Cavaye,
1996). Rather than moving from theory to data (deductive) or data to theory (inductive),
abductive reasoning combines both deductive and inductive reasoning and moves back
3.2 Research approach and methodological choices
73
73
and forth between data and theory (Suddaby, 2006). As a continuous process, abductive
reasoning is unique to qualitative research and is consistent with actual work of many
business and management researchers Saunders et al., 2019). Through this back and forth
process, abductive reasoning fosters creativity to build new theories or modify existing
theories (Saunders et al., 2019).
The overall research strategy of this thesis, especially the empirical part of this thesis, i.e.,
Publications IV and V, was abductive research strategy, as the focus of the study was to
compare the empirical observations from the cases to the existing theories and studies.
Knowledge management in general has been studied for decades, so the current
understanding of knowledge management practice in general was obtained and lead the
researcher to investigate the phenomenon in detail from a PLC perspective. Therefore,
the study started from the familiarization with the existing literature and was followed by
the empirical investigation. The literature always offered reference points for the results
throughout the research process and the results were discussed in relation to the literature,
demonstrating the contribution of the study to both theory and practice.
Data collection and analysis
The data collection and analysis of Publications VI and V followed a qualitative research
approach (Eriksson and Kovalainen, 2016). Semi-structured interviews were conducted
as the primary data collection method for both articles. As a data collection instrument,
interviews allow instant clarification of the terminology involved and circumvent
misunderstandings (Parkhe, 1993), which is particularly important for this study because
some of the terminology used in academia are not familiar words for practitioners. Semi-
structured interviews allow further elaboration on relevant topics by introducing follow-
up questions that are considered important by both the interviewer and interviewees
(Braun and Clarke, 2013) to achieve a rich understanding of the topic. Thus they were
favored over fully structured interviews. In addition to the primary data collection,
secondary data (e.g., press releases, company documentation and information from the
company’s websites, and other publicly available information on the studied companies’
knowledge management practices) were used to enrich the data as well as achieve
triangulation (Yin, 2014). A complementary questionnaire survey was conducted for
Publication V, which will be discussed in detail in the next sub-section.
The key sources of the primary data for both case study articles consisted of 29 face-to-
face semi-structured interviews conducted in seven manufacturing companies and four
logistics companies in Beijing and Tianjin, China. The manufacturing companies were in
different industries (e.g., traditional printing, high-tech electronic measurement, and
biochemistry, etc.) and with different sizes. The company size was determined using the
EU classification based on the number of people employed in the company. Micro
enterprises were those with fewer than 10 employees, small enterprises were those with
10 to 49 employees, medium-sized enterprises were those with 50-250 employees, and
large enterprises were those with more than 250 employees (Eurostat, 2016). Except for
the biochemistry company which was medium-sized, all the other manufacturing
3 Methodology and research design 74
companies were large (Eurostat, 2016). The logistics companies provided services to
different industries, and two of them even served the manufacturing companies in this
study. With regards to size, the logistics companies were relatively small compared to the
manufacturing companies. Only one of these was medium sized and all the others were
small. In order to get rich information, a purposeful sampling strategy was used to select
key informants (Sandelowski, 2000) by considering their relevance and familiarity with
the research topic. All the informants were managers in the respective functional
department and were knowledgeable about knowledge management practices both in the
department and in the company. In particular, the participants in the manufacturing
companies were managers for the R&D department, purchasing department, production
department, sales department, logistics department, and customer service department, and
the participants in the logistics companies were responsible for logistics operations in the
company. Multiple informants were selected in each manufacturing company so that
information from one interviewee could be confirmed by other interviewees in the same
company to increase the validity of the results (Golden, 1992). In order to protect the
confidentiality of the interviewees, only their job titles were included, and the identifiable
details were excluded (Parkinson, Eatough, Holmes, Stapley, and Midgley, 2016). The
duration of each interview was between 45 and 120 minutes. The focus of the interview
guidelines was on the thematic questions raised from the literature review, covering topics
related to knowledge management practices in the department and in the company.
Mandarin was the communication language (the mother tongue of the researcher and the
interviewees) used in all the interviews to create better rapport for active participation and
interaction (Tsang, 1999). All the interview data was digitally recorded with permission,
except for interviews in two manufacturing companies, where filed notes were written
down by the interviewer. The audio records were fully transcribed verbatim by the
interviewer and checked for accuracy through repeated listening. Upon transcription
completion and manual text mining, a member checking technique was applied to
increase the validity of the study by sending the finalized transcriptions to the participants
(Creswell, 2014).
In terms of data analysis, data from the semi-structured interviews was analyzed using
thematic coding and analysis methods (Braun and Clarke, 2006; Lee, 1999) in the NVivo
12 software program. The data was analyzed and reported based on predetermined themes
from the literature (Lee, 1999). The initial nodes in NVivo were created according to the
main themes from the research questions, including knowledge requirements, knowledge
sharing, knowledge reuse, and the impact of digitalization on the above-mentioned
practices.
Publication IV applied a firm level analysis to investigate knowledge management
practice in beginning-of-life (BOL) and middle-of-life (MOL) phases in the PSS context,
which was represented by R&D and logistics, respectively. Six participants who were
familiar with knowledge management practices in R&D from three large manufacturing
companies represented the BOL phase, and three participants who were familiar with
knowledge management in logistics from three logistics companies represented the MOL
phase. In total, nine interviews were analyzed. In order to obtain a clearer comparison of
3.2 Research approach and methodological choices
75
75
knowledge management practices within and between the BOL and MOL phases, the two
transcripts of each manufacturing company were merged into one. Therefore, six files
representing six companies were eventually imported into NVivo, three manufacturing
companies for the BOL phase (i.e., M1, M2, and M3) and three logistics companies for
the MOL (i.e., L1, L2, and L3). A summary of the companies and participants in
Publication IV is presented in Table 9.
Table 9. Information about the case companies and participants in Publication IV
In Publication V, knowledge management practices in six PLC sub-phases were analyzed
in the PSS context, and from the PSS provider’s perspective. Different PLC phases and
sub-phases were represented by the relevant functional departments in the company,
among which R&D, purchasing, and production were used to represent the beginning-of-
life phase, and logistics, customer service, and sales were used to represent middle-of-life
phase. A total number of twenty-seven interviews with managers in the corresponding
departments were conducted from 7 manufacturing companies and 4 logistics companies.
Another two interviews from manufacturing companies, one with the chief information
officer and the other with the chief executive officer, were not included in the final data
analysis through NVivo. Rather, the data was used to confirm the interpretations of other
interviews as well as serving as triangulation to enhance the study’s credibility. A
summary of the companies and participants in Publication V is presented in Table 10 (on
the next page).
3.2.3 Questionnaire survey
By studying a sample of a population, the researchers adopted a survey design method
and intended to generalize the sample results to the population and provide a quantitative
or numeric description of trends, attitudes, or opinions of that population (Creswell,
2014). In order to get more information on the usage of IT applications in the companies
studied, a quantitative survey was used as a supplementary method in Publication V.
3 Methodology and research design 76
Table 10. Information about the case companies and participants in Publication V (Xin,
Ojanen, and Huiskonen, 2020)
Questionnaire design
As the objective of the survey was to get descriptive information on the usage of IT
applications in the company, the validity and reliability of the measurements was not the
priority in the questionnaire design. Rather, the focus was on the list of the IT
applications. Adapted from some literature on knowledge management systems, eleven
IT applications were selected in the final list, including email, intranet, workflow systems,
database management systems, search engines, document management systems, instant
Company Industry Size * Participant Job title PLC phase PLC sub-phase
P1 senior supply chain manager BOL Purchasing (PUR)
P2 R&D manager BOL R&D (RD)
P3 R&D manager BOL R&D (RD)
P4 senior R&D project manager BOL R&D (RD)
P5 procurement manager BOL Purchasing (PUR)
P6 production manager BOL Production (PD)
P7 customer service/quality manager MOL Customer service (CS)
P8 procurement manager BOL Purchasing (PUR)
P9 product quality manager BOL Production (PD)
P10 production manager BOL Production (PD)
P11 logistics and customs manager MOL Logistics (LOG)
P12 customer service manager MOL Customer service (CS)
P13 senior sales manager MOL Sales (SAL)
P14 production manager BOL Production (PD)
P15 logistics and customs manager MOL Logistics (LOG)
P16 procurement manager BOL Purchasing (PUR)
P17 sales manager MOL Sales (SAL)
P18 customer service manager MOL Customer service (CS)
chief information officer
P19 product planning master, former R&D engineer BOL R&D (RD)
P20 channel manager, former R&D engineer MOL Sales (SAL)
CEO
P21 Procurement manager BOL Purchasing (PUR)
P22 R&D manager BOL R&D (RD)
P23 R&D manager BOL R&D (RD)
C8 logistics small P24 customer service & customs manager MOL Logistics (LOG)
C9 logistics medium P25 port & customs manager MOL Logistics (LOG)
C10 logistics small P26 operations manager MOL Logistics (LOG)
C11 logistics small P27 customer service & customs manager MOL Logistics (LOG)
C7 biocheminstry medium
* Size was determined using EU classification based on persons employed in the company: fewer than 10 micro enterprises; 10-49 small enterprises;
C5 electronics components large
C6 electronic measurement large
C3 consumer electronics large
C4 chemical large
C1 printing large
C2 automobile large
3.2 Research approach and methodological choices
77
77
messaging, groupware systems, video conferencing, business intelligence systems, and
decision support systems (Azyabi, Fisher, Tanner, and Gao, 2014; Alavi and Leidner,
2001; Choi and Lee, 2003; Hislop, 2009). A five-point Likert scale was used to measure
the degree of usage of the IT applications (Churchill, 1992), where 1 = unknown
application, 2 = known but not used, 3 = rarely used, 4 = regularly used, and 5 =
intensively used.
Data collection and analysis
A questionnaire survey was used as a supplementary method in Publication V to get more
information on the IT applications’ usage. Purposive sampling was used to collect the
data (Sandelowski, 2000) since the survey was conducted upon the completion of each
interview. The interviewees were asked to fill in a short questionnaire, indicating that the
sample size was limited to the number of interviews conducted. Similar to the data used
in final case analysis in the same publication, the two survey responses from the chief
information officer and chief executive officer were excluded from the final quantitative
data analysis. Therefore, twenty-seven questionnaires were used for the descriptive
analysis using the IBM SPSS software package (Version 26). This is not only in line with
the objectives of the questionnaire survey used in this study, but also consistent with the
recommendations for data analysis with a small sample size (Creswell, 2014). A
quantitative data analysis was carried out. The degree of usage of each of the eleven IT
applications in different PLC sub-phases (departments) was compared through an
ANOVA comparison of means. In order to show the significant difference between
groups (i.e., in different PLC sub-phases) in detail, a post-hoc test of ANOVA was
conducted for the comparison. The data analysis results of the survey are shown in Table
11.
Table 11. IT applications used in different PLC sub-phases
R&D Purchasing Production Logistics Customer service Sales Mean Usage level
emails 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
intranet 5 5 5 4,67 4 *** 5 4,81
workflow systems 5 5 5 3,67 * 5 5 4,7
database management systems 5 5 5 3,83 *** 5 4 *** 4,63
search engines 5 4,8 3,25 *** 4,83 4,33 4,33 4,52
document management systems 4 4,8 4,5 4,33 4,33 4,67 4,41
instant messaging 3 3,2 2,5 4,5 *** 4 *** 4 *** 3,52
groupware systems 3,83 3,6 3,75 2,83 3 4,33 3,52
video conferencing 3,5 3 2,5 3,17 3 3,67 3,15
business intelligence systems 4 *** 3,2 2,25 2,33 3 3,67 *** 3,07
decision support systems 3,5 2,8 2,5 2,83 3 3 2,96
intensively
used
regularly
used
rarely used
*** P<0,001 , ** P<0,01, * P<0,05 (Duncan alpha)
3 Methodology and research design 78
3.3 Quality of the research
A piece of research should represent a logical set of conclusions, so it is important to
judge the quality of the research based on multiple criteria (Yin, 2014). Usually, the
quality of research is measured by its reliability, validity, and the generalizability of the
results to a wider range of phenomena (Braun and Clarke, 2013). The more suitable
corresponding term used to measure the quality of qualitative research is trustworthiness,
which reflects the extent of credible and trustworthy of the data and the data analysis. The
criteria adopted in this thesis to ensure trustworthiness were credibility, transferability,
dependability, and confirmability, which were used in parallel to the corresponding
quantitative criteria of internal validity, external validity (generalizability), reliability, and
neutrality (Creswell, 2013; Lincoln and Guba, 1985).
Credibility
Credibility means the confidence of the data and its interpretation, in other words, how
well the interpretations made from the data represent the research participants’
(informants) perspectives. In this thesis, credibility was realized through numerous means.
First, it was achieved through prolonged engagement and member checking. During the
face-to-face interviews, the researcher interacted with the participants continuously to
establish a trusting environment and relationship, which allowed the researcher to get
deep insights from the participants. Regarding the member checking, the interview
content was restated and verified by the researcher during the interviews to ensure the
views of the participants were captured accurately, and instant corrections were made for
any misunderstandings. Upon completion of the transcription and manual text mining,
the polished transcriptions were sent to the participants to confirm the validity of the
content (Creswell, 2014). Second, data triangulation was applied in this thesis to ensure
a deep and complete understanding of the investigated phenomenon (Patton, 2014).
Wherever possible, this thesis strove to collect data from different sources and of different
types. Various types of data were used, including data from primary sources (i.e.,
interviews and surveys) and secondary sources (i.e., literature, press releases, company
documentation and information from the company’s website, and other publicly available
information). Multiple key informants were selected in each manufacturing company so
that the information from one interviewee could be confirmed by other interviewees
(Golden, 1992). In addition, the extra two interviews conducted in Publication V were
used to confirm the interpretations of the other interviews. Thirdly, the credibility of this
thesis was ensured by the quality of the data sources. For the literature review articles,
only peer-reviewed journal articles and conference papers were included, which
addressed the quality of the reviewed publications. For the empirical articles, predefined
protocols were used in the interviews to ensure the credibility of the results (Yin, 2014).
Fourthly, peer scrutiny of this research enhanced the credibility of the results. The
research results were presented at a total of five academic conferences, and all the
individual publications have undergone a peer review process.
Transferability
3.3 Quality of the research
79
79
Transferability refers to the applicability or generalizability of the research findings from
the sample to other situations. Given the small sample size in most qualitative research,
it is difficult to transfer the findings straightforwardly (Morrow, 2005). Therefore, it is
important to provide proper information on the context of the research settings to allow
other researchers assess the relevance and usefulness of the findings for them (Shenton,
2004). In this thesis, data collection from multiple companies made it possible to compare
insights between cases and increased the generalizability and transferability of the results.
The key informants were selected based on their relevance and familiarity with the
research topic which increased the transferability of the results. In addition, in-depth
descriptions of the case studies, including the research context, research process,
participants and settings were provided to enable the readers to analyze and determine the
applicability of the findings to their own premises.
Dependability
Dependability refers to the degree of information provided by the researcher to ensure the
replicability of the research, including the logic, traceability, and documentation of the
research (Eriksson and Kovalainen, 2016). In this thesis, a detailed research method
section was provided in each individual publication to describe the research context and
research process. For the empirical articles, all the interviews were recorded with
permission, then transcribed and stored properly. For those interviews which could not
be recorded, detailed field notes were made during the interviews. For the literature
review articles, the systematic literature selection process was transparently showcased
to increase the replicability of the study.
Confirmability
Confirmability refers to the quality of the results, that is the results should be based on
the data gathered, and others should be able to easily understand the results through the
linkage provided between the findings and conclusions (Lincoln and Guba, 1985). This
implies that researchers must provide readers with a chain of evidence to logically draw
the stated conclusions. The interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim
to ensure the participants’ narratives were accurately represented. In the empirical articles
in this thesis, detailed data excerpts, such as direct quotations from the interviews, were
used to establish a chain of evidence from the empirical data, thus providing evidence for
the reader. Whenever possible, the findings were compared with the findings of other
studies to confirm the interpretation of the findings, thus strengthening the confirmability
of the thesis. In addition, the findings of all the individual publications were confirmed
by the co-authors to provide additional conformability.
3 Methodology and research design 80
81
4 Summary of the publications and results
This chapter presents the primary findings of the thesis by summarizing the main findings
and contributions made by each of the publications. The research results and research
topics addressed in each of the individual publication are summarized in Table 12.
Table 12. Research results and research topics addressed in the individual publications
Publication Research results and topics addressed
Publication I Analyzed the current state of empirical studies of product-service systems
(PSS) through a systematic literature review of 70 peer-reviewed journal
articles, including acceptance of PSS in academia and industry, evolution
progress, research method used, and the focuses of these studies.
Provided possible research directions/considerations for future empirical PSS
studies.
Publication II Identified the impact of digitalization on product lifecycle management
through a systematic literature review of 35 journal articles and conference
papers.
Provided suggestions for manufacturing companies to respond and remain
competitive in the digital era.
Publication III Identified knowledge requirements, knowledge sharing and reuse practices
throughout the product lifecycle (PLC) through a systematic literature review
of 58 journal articles and conference papers.
Raised propositions to academia on possible future research directions.
Raised propositions to practitioners on how to facilitate knowledge sharing
and reuse across PLC.
Proposed an extended PLC model considering knowledge management in the
PSS context.
Publication IV Investigated knowledge requirements, knowledge sharing, and knowledge
reuse in manufacturing companies (representing the beginning-of-life, [BOL]
phase) and logistics companies (representing the middle-of-life, [MOL]
phase) in the PSS context from different stakeholders’ perspectives through
semi-structured interviews in three manufacturing companies and three
logistics companies.
Identified the impact of digitalization on the above-mentioned topics.
Provided managerial implications to facilitate knowledge management.
Publication V Investigated knowledge requirements, knowledge sharing, and knowledge
reuse in three PLC sub-phases in BOL (R&D, purchasing, and production)
and three PLC sub-phases in MOL (logistics, customer service, and sales)
from the PSS provider’s perspective through twenty-seven semi-structured
interviews in eleven companies and a supplementary questionnaire survey.
Identified similarities and differences of knowledge requirements, knowledge
sharing, and knowledge reuse within and between the BOL and MOL phases.
Identified influencing factors of knowledge sharing from the knowledge
sender’s perspective and influencing factors of knowledge reuse from the
knowledge receiver’s perspective.
Analyzed the impact of digitalization on the above-mentioned topics.
4 Summary of the publications and results 82
Provided guidelines for PSS providers to facilitate better knowledge sharing
and knowledge reuse in the digital era.
4.1 Publication I: Empirical studies on product-service systems – A
systematic literature review
4.1.1 Background and objectives
The awareness of sustainability is greater than before for the entire society. To deliver
value to the customer and fulfill their needs by providing an integrated bundle of tangible
products and intangible services (i.e., Boehm and Thomas, 2013; Roy and Baxter, 2009;
Tukker and Tischner, 2006; Tukker, 2015), product-service systems (PSS) have the
potential to embrace sustainability. Therefore, PSS has become an emerging topic for
both researchers and practitioners. Although research related to PSS has been reviewed
from various perspectives, in different fields and in special geographic areas (e.g., Baines
et al., 2007; Boehm and Thomas, 2013; Lightfoot et al.,, 2013; Reim et al., 2015; Tukker
and Tischner, 2006; Vasantha et a., 2012), to our knowledge, none of the existing review
papers looked at empirical PSS studies as the focus. In order to understand the current
state of the empirical studies on PSS, the objective of Publication I was to address this
gap by conducting a systematic literature review.
4.1.2 Main findings
Through a systematic literature review of seventy peer-reviewed journal articles
published between 2006 and 2016 in the online Scopus database, this study found that
about 80 percent of the relevant studies had been published since 2012, which reflected
the demand for empirical PSS research in the recent years. PSS has been widely studied
in academia and related articles were distributed across more than thirty journals. In
industry and practice, PSS has been widely applied globally, especially in Europe, as
about two thirds of the studies were from Europe. However, it should be noted that more
than half of the studies were related to product-oriented PSS, indicating PSS was not
mature from the evolutionary perspective. Regarding research methods, qualitative case
studies was employed by more than eighty percent of the articles reviewed, and about two
thirds of them adopted a single case study approach. Based on the objectives and focuses
of the PSS studies, seven themes were identified, including the PSS design approach,
approaches facilitating PSS design, PSS transformation drivers, PSS status quo, PSS
evaluation, PSS function, and PSS impact. Not surprisingly, more than forty percent of
the studies were related to PSS design, especially the early phases of PSS design.
4.2 Publication II: The impact of digitalization on product lifecycle
management: How to deal with it?
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4.1.3 Main contributions
The systematic literature review in Publication I contributes to PSS development by
providing possible research directions, or considerations, for future empirical PSS
studies. With regards to the research method, increasing the number of quantitative PSS
studies would be suggested to help to generalize and validate the findings as most existing
studies were qualitative in nature. Regarding the research scope or the unit of analysis, a
broader view should be taken to treat PSS as a system, rather than only focusing on a
single entity. Related to the system, a lifecycle perspective is very important in the PSS
context. However, only a few of the existing empirical PSS studies took this into account.
Therefore, future PSS studies should think about the entire product lifecycle and integrate
the viewpoints of different stakeholders.
4.2 Publication II: The impact of digitalization on product lifecycle
management: How to deal with it?
4.2.1 Background and objectives
In order to be competitive in the ever-growing complex digital ecosystems, in addition to
selling pure products, offering product-related services throughout the entire product
lifecycle (PLC) is becoming a necessity for manufacturing companies (Herterich,
Uebernickel, and Brenner, 2015), which means that manufacturers need to cooperate with
multiple stakeholders throughout the PLC by utilizing digital means (Figay et al., 2012).
As a strategy, product lifecycle management (PLM) becomes more important as its
starting point and purpose is to manage the product-related information throughout the
entire PLC efficiently so that competitive advantages can be achieved from more flexible
and efficient business processes (Stark, 2011; Terzi et al., 2010; Wegst and Ashby, 2002).
As a technological trend and ongoing transformation process, digitalization has impacted
the whole society enormously (Li, Merenda, and Venkatachalam, 2009). For companies,
digitalization has changed the organizational business model and provided new value-
created opportunities, for example, by bringing heterogeneous resources together,
observing and understanding the operations and results in real time, and blurring market
boundaries (Hess et al., 2016; Parviainen et al., 2017). Then, what does digitalization
bring to PLM and how should manufacturing companies respond? The objective of
Publication II was to answer these questions by conducting a systematic literature review.
4.2.2 Main findings
Based on the online database Scopus, Publication II analyzed thirty-five journal articles
and conference papers published between 1999 and 2017 with a focus on product lifecycle
management (PLM) strategy and digitalization in industry. The study found that more
than thirty percent of the articles in this review were published after 2015, which was
consistent with the development of digitalization. In general, the study found that
digitalization extended PLM to the entire product lifecycle (PLC) and allowed closed
4 Summary of the publications and results 84
loop PLM in practice to improve product quality and enhance the company’s business
(Kiritsis, 2011). By categorizing PLC into beginning-of-life (BOL), middle-of-life
(MOL), and end-of-life (EOL) (Kiritsis et al., 2003; Kiritsis, 2011; Stark, 2011), more
detailed impacts of digitalization on different PLC phases were analyzed corresponding
to the different objectives of the different PLC phases. From the PLM perspective, in the
BOL phase, digitalization not only enhanced the development of product and process
(Kuo and Wang, 2012; Patrick, 2008) which shortened the time to market of products
(Affonso et al., 2013), but also improved energy management (Tao, Wang, Zuo, Yang,
and Zhang, 2016). In the MOL phase, digitalization facilitated to reduce the through-life
cost by using the data collected from the communication and interaction between products
and components (Lerch and Gotsch, 2015) which enabled more efficient logistics and
energy management (Främling, Holmström, Loukkola, Nyman, and Kaustell, 2013; Tao
et al., 2016). When turning to the EOL phase, with the ability to help estimate the
remaining value of the end-of-use products, digitalization increased the accuracy and
efficiency of decision-making thus improving resource-saving recycling activities (Li et
al, 2015).
4.2.3 Main contributions
The in-depth literature review in Publication II contributes to enhancing the current
understanding of the impact of digitalization on product lifecycle management (PLM),
thereby providing suggestions for manufacturing companies to respond and remain
competitive in the digital era. Digitalization not only facilitates PLM by promoting the
exchange of information between the stakeholders throughout the entire product lifecycle
(PLC), but also bring challenges to managing information due to the various forms of
data generated, the huge volumes of data created, and the security issues raised by the
interconnection between various stakeholders in the physical world and cyberspace. The
real benefits of digitalization can only be achieved when this information exchange is
really fulfilled in practice. Therefore, it would be important to provide standardized data
so that it is feasible for the relevant stakeholders to analyze and use the data from various
domains in PLM. In addition, establishing stronger partnerships with the various
stakeholders is essential for manufacturing companies to better manage resources,
especially external resources. At the same time, the scope, depth, and manner of data
sharing with other stakeholder or partners must be strictly defined to guarantee that the
accessibility is only limited to the authorized parties. To deal with all these challenges,
highly competent people will be even more crucial and indispensable for the company,
especially those people with advanced problem-solving skills and a multi-disciplinary
knowledge base. As such, to prepare in advance by providing appropriate training to the
employees would be an option. Through such efforts, it would be possible to promote
more efficient PLM and thus move towards a less resource intensive society.
4.3 Publication III: Knowledge management in product-service systems – A
product lifecycle perspective
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4.3 Publication III: Knowledge management in product-service
systems – A product lifecycle perspective
4.3.1 Background and objectives
Product-service systems (PSS) integrate tangible products and intangible services to
create customer utility and generate value (Tukker, 2015) and can potentially move
society towards sustainability because PSS takes into account the entire product lifecycle
(PLC). Categorizing PLC into beginning-of-life (BOL), middle-of-life (MOL), and end-
of-life (EOL) phases (Kiritsis, 2011; Stark, 2011), knowledge generated in each PLC
phase will be used by various stakeholders, both within the same PLC phase and
throughout different PLC phases (i.e., Baxter et al., 2009; Kim and Park, 2014; Sander
and Brombacher, 2000), and this is especially true in the PSS context (Zhang et al., 2012).
With different objectives and focuses in each PLC phase, the corresponding knowledge
requirements and management are different as well. In the PSS context, identifying this
difference is especially important because PSS requires the application of multiple-
disciplinary knowledge throughout the PLC. However, the existing literature rarely
investigated this in detail. Addressing this gap, the objective of Publication III is to look
into the knowledge requirements and management in different PLC phases thus helping
the various stakeholders of PSS to achieve better knowledge management and provide
insights for researchers into the possible directions of knowledge management in the PSS
context. In particular, knowledge requirements, knowledge sharing and reuse practices
throughout the PLC are the focus of this study.
4.3.2 Main findings
Focusing on knowledge management in product-service systems throughout the product
lifecycle (PLC), this study reviewed fifty-eight journal articles and conference papers
published between 1995 and 2017 based on the online database Scopus. More than one-
third of the studies were published between 2013 and 2017, which reflected the increasing
trend of study in this area. Regarding knowledge requirements, this study found that
although the knowledge required in different PLC phases might be generated from the
same PLC phase, the focuses of their usage were not the same. In addition, use-oriented
PSS looked forward to getting more knowledge from the middle-of-life phase. With
regards to knowledge sharing, both codification and personalization strategies were
adopted by the companies based on different objectives. However, person-to-person
communication was still preferred by R&D personnel. Moreover, middle-of-life
knowledge was mostly shared only within this phase due to non-uniformed knowledge
representation and scattered knowledge storage. Concerning knowledge reuse, various
models/frameworks were proposed with different focuses and from different points of
view, targeting only one PLC phase or across different PLC phases. A variety of
knowledge reuse models targeting the beginning-of-life phase were introduced and from
different perspectives, whereas there were not many models targeting the middle-of-life
and end-of-life phases and these had limited objectives or were from limited perspectives.
4 Summary of the publications and results 86
4.3.3 Main contributions
Publication III contributes to knowledge management in PSS by reviewing relevant
studies from the product lifecycle (PLC) perspective and providing propositions to both
academia and practitioners. To academia, this study proposed that it is crucial to identify
and classify the knowledge requirements by different stakeholders throughout the PLC
phases in future research. Moreover, it would be valuable to investigate knowledge reuse
in middle-of-life (MOL) and end-of-life (EOL) phases to make the theory about
knowledge management in PSS more comprehensive. In particular, the original
equipment manufacturers’ perspective should be considered for the knowledge reuse
model targeting the EOL phase to achieve sustainability. To practitioners, this study
proposed that the knowledge provided should be represented in standardized forms and
appropriate manners to match the requirements in different PLC phases and facilitate
knowledge sharing across the entire PLC. In addition, a balanced adoption of
personalization and codification strategy should be determined depending on the
organization’s unique context, rather than following any fixed ratio.
Triggered by sustainability concerns and integrating lifecycle thinking in the PSS context,
an extended product lifecycle (PLC) model considering knowledge management was
proposed in this study. By incorporating raw materials extraction and material production,
this model emphasized a close-loop information flow and will help to accomplish real
sustainability in PSS (as shown in Figure 10).
Figure 10. Extended PLC model considering knowledge management in PSS context
4.4 Publication IV: Dealing with knowledge management practices in different
product lifecycle phases within product-service
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87
In addition to the contribution to academia and practitioners, some of the propositions in
Publication III were planned to be investigated in PSS providers by conducting multiple
case studies
4.4 Publication IV: Dealing with knowledge management practices in
different product lifecycle phases within product-service
4.4.1 Background and objectives
Taking into account the emergence of widespread topics, for example, sustainability,
digitalization, and product lifecycle management (PLM) together, product-service
systems (PSS) have emerged as a business model to embrace sustainability from the
environmental, economic, and social perspectives, with a focus on environmental
sustainability (Geum and Park, 2011; Goedkoop et al., 1999; Tukker, 2004). Since the
clarification of the concept, PSS has been widely applied globally and in a variety of
research areas (e.g., Baines et al., 2007; Boehm and Thomas, 2013; Lightfoot et al.,2013;
Reim et al., 2015; Tukker and Tischner, 2006; Vasantha et al., 2012). With the shift from
providing pure manufacturing products with a certain functionality to offering availability
of tangible and intangible value to the customers (i.e., Manzini and Vezzoli, 2003; Roy
and Baxter, 2009), PSS involves a variety of stakeholders throughout the product lifecycle
(PLC), i.e., the beginning-of-life (BOL), middle-of-life (MOL), and end-of-life (EOL)
phases (Stark, 2011), and each phase has different knowledge requirements and
knowledge management practices (e.g., Ahmed-Kristensen and Vianello, 2014; Filieri
and Alguezaui, 2015; Ongondo and Williams, 2001; Perry, Pompidou, and Mantaux,
2014; Urwin and Young, 2014; Vezzetti, 2012; Vianello and Ahmed, 2012; Yang, Liu,
Wang, and Shen, 2013). Being one of the most important sources of competitive
advantage of the firm, knowledge becomes more important for the stakeholders in the
PSS context because they need to intensively use knowledge from different PLC phases,
which leads to more challenging management of knowledge (Zhang et al., 2012).
Moreover, the opportunities and challenges brought by the on-going digitalization
transformation has impacted the companies in different ways, which makes knowledge
management even more complex (Xin, Ojanen, and Huiskonen, 2018). For these reasons,
it is necessary to investigate knowledge management practice further in different PLC
phases to facilitate better knowledge management for the stakeholders in PSS contexts,
and to enrich PSS and knowledge management academic research, which is the starting
ground of Publication IV.
The existing knowledge management studies have mostly focused on the beginning-of-
life (BOL) phase and studies for the middle-of-life (MOL) phase have not been
comprehensive (Cai et al., 2014). For those few studies of the MOL phase, the focuses
were on one of the MOL sub-phases, e.g., use and support (Goh and McMahon, 2009;
Thompson, 1999), and empirical studies on the other sub-phases in the MOL phase, e.g.,
distribution, were scant in the PSS context (Durst and Evangelista, 2018). Numerous
manufacturing firms outsource their logistics with the intention of streamlining the value
4 Summary of the publications and results 88
chains (Franceschini et al., 2003), which means that the investigation of knowledge
management practice in the MOL phase inevitably involves logistics companies.
Therefore, an investigation of knowledge management practices in the MOL phase,
particularly in the distribution sub-phase (for example in logistics companies), will
increase the understanding of appropriate ways of managing knowledge in manufacturing
firms.
Addressing all the above-mentioned discussions, the objective of Publication IV is to
investigate knowledge management in manufacturing companies (the beginning-of-life,
BOL phase) and logistics companies (the middle-of-life, MOL phase) in the PSS context,
especially focusing on knowledge requirements, sharing and reuse. In addition, the impact
of digitalization will be examined to consider the opportunities and challenges raised in
the digital era.
4.4.2 Main findings
The main results of this study came from semi-structured interviews in three
manufacturing companies and three logistics companies in China. In the current study,
the beginning-of-life (BOL) phase (particularly the design sub-phase related to R&D) was
represented by these manufacturing companies, while the middle-of-life (MOL) phase
(particularly the distribution sub-phase related to external logistic) was represented by the
logistics companies. With regards to knowledge requirements, the results of this study
demonstrated that a fair difference existed between the BOL and MOL phases. For
example, the required expertise in the BOL phase focused on design and technology,
whereas in the MOL phase the focus was on policy issues. The required customer
knowledge in the BOL phase was related to customer needs and user experience, whereas
during the MOL phase the focus became the characteristics of the customer’s product. In
addition, market knowledge was only used by the studied companies in the BOL phase,
while industry knowledge was only used during the MOL phase. Corresponding to the
knowledge required, during the BOL phase the studied companies acquired expertise-
related knowledge through learning-by-doing and preferred person-to-person
communication, whereas during the MOL phase such knowledge was acquired from the
government and preferred through meeting organized by the government.
Regarding knowledge sharing, it was found that during both the BOL and MOL phases it
was important and necessary in the current digital era to share knowledge. Knowledge
was not only shared internally within the department and within the company, but also
shared externally with customers. However, during the BOL phase knowledge was not
shared with competitors due to confidentiality, whereas during the MOL phase
knowledge was sometimes shared with competitors to gain mutual benefits. The most
commonly adopted knowledge sharing mechanism in both the BOL and MOL phases was
training. Unique mechanisms used in the MOL phase included job rotation and social
media due to the characteristics of the job tasks in the MOL phase. The relevance of
knowledge was the most significant factor that affected knowledge sharing, in both the
BOL and MOL phases.
4.4 Publication IV: Dealing with knowledge management practices in different
product lifecycle phases within product-service
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The studied companies reported that they reused knowledge in their daily work during
the BOL and MOL phases and stressed its importance. During the BOL phase, knowledge
reuse was reported by some companies to be one of their principles. However, the factors
influencing knowledge reuse were different in the BOL and MOL phases. During the
BOL phase, they were more related to the familiarity with the knowledge, and during the
MOL phase they were more related to the standardization of the knowledge.
Under the on-going digital transformation, knowledge integration has become crucial as
broader and more multi-disciplinary knowledge is required, which naturally calls for
more highly competent employees. In addition, during the BOL phase, the safety and
security issue of data protection was strongly emphasized as digitalization had led to vast
amounts of available data and also made it easier for the data to be accessed.
One unsurprising finding from this study was that sustainability was highly stressed in
the BOL phase, even though this topic was not included in the interview guideline. This
awareness started from design and considered the entire PLC. However, a contradictory
message related to this also arose from the BOL phase as in interviewees clearly indicated
that the knowledge exchange between the BOL and EOL phases was very limited and
they never improved product design by tracking or applying EOL knowledge.
4.4.3 Main contributions
Publication IV contributed to both PSS and knowledge management research. Firstly, this
study shed light on PSS research by investigating the similarities and differences in
knowledge management practices in the PSS context from different stakeholders’
perspectives, and from a PLC perspective. Secondly, this study enhanced the
understanding of knowledge management in manufacturing firms (BOL) by investigating
knowledge management practices in logistics companies (MOL) in the PSS context.
Thirdly, this study enriched the PSS literature by adopting a multiple case study approach
to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the status quo.
In addition to the theoretical contributions, some managerial implications were presented
in this study to facilitate knowledge management and maintain company competitiveness
in the PSS context in the digital age. Firstly, companies must clearly identify knowledge
requirements in different product lifecycle (PLC) phases to ensure a correct
understanding exists between the different PLC phases or between different stakeholders.
This is a prerequisite for effective and efficient knowledge sharing and reuse. Secondly,
companies should re-emphasize the importance of people, especially the importance of
R&D personnel (Lerch and Gotsch, 2015; Terzi et al., 2010) and develop appropriate
strategies to retain R&D experts. The experience and tacit knowledge obtained through
learning-by-doing is more crucial for R&D and its accumulation takes time. Thirdly,
companies should take action to strengthen external collaboration (Herterich et al., 2015)
to facilitate the multi-disciplinary knowledge acquisition and application required in the
digital era. Fourthly, companies should advocate standardization for different aspects,
including but not limited to documentation and the interface between various stakeholders
4 Summary of the publications and results 90
in the PSS context as knowledge sharing throughout the entire PLC can only be fulfilled
by having widely recognized and must followed standards.
4.5 Publication V: Sharing and reusing knowledge for innovation and
competitiveness in PSS
4.5.1 Background and objectives
Along with the trend of sustainability-oriented innovations (Adams et al., 2016), product-
service systems (PSS) (Tukker, 2015), and emerging digital technologies and ecosystems
(Clarysse, Wright, Bruneel, and Mahajan, 2014), the basis of competition has shifted from
the physical product’s functionality to the availability or performance of a bundle of
product and service, i.e., the broader product system. Management of knowledge is even
more crucial and challenging to the companies in this context as various forms of
knowledge residing in different stakeholders along the product lifecycle (PLC) need to
be integrated for the company to keep competitive. Therefore, as one of the actors in the
system, manufacturing companies need to adopt appropriate knowledge management
strategies/practices throughout the entire PLC to reap more value from knowledge
management.
Knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse are the key processes in knowledge
management (Bemret and Bennetz, 2003), which have long been investigated in the
literature. However, if we categorize the product lifecycle (PLC) into three phases, that
is the beginning-of-life (BOL), middle-of-life (MOL), and end-of-life (EOL) phase
(Stark, 2011), the existing knowledge management studies on knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse have mainly focused on the BOL phase (design and manufacturing)
(Baxter et al., 2009) and empirical studies targeting the MOL phase (external logistic,
use, repair and maintenance) have not been comprehensive (Cai et al., 2014; Durst and
Evangelista, 2018). As a PSS provider, ensuring the usefulness of their product along the
PLC is crucial, which makes the MOL phase even more important than before. Thus,
further investigating knowledge management practices, especially knowledge sharing
and reuse in the MOL phase, will help PSS providers to set more appropriate knowledge
management strategies and reap the fruit from their knowledge management efforts. In
addition, the impact of the ongoing trend of digitalization on knowledge management,
such as supporting communication (Treem and Leonardi, 2012), enabling information
access (Kankanhalli et al., 2005), and facilitating and shaping the sharing and reuse
behavior (Hislop, 2009; Leonardi et al., 2013; Von Krogh, 2012) should be investigated
to get an integrated understanding of knowledge management.
The objective of Publication V is to investigate knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse
in both the BOL and MOL phases to help companies, especially PSS providers, to better
understand their knowledge management status quo, and adjust their management
strategies to keep innovative and competitive in the digital era. This study also aims to
complement the current knowledge management theory through a product lifecycle
4.5 Publication V: Sharing and reusing knowledge for innovation and
competitiveness in PSS
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perspective in the PSS context. In this study because external logistics could be fulfilled
by both the manufacturing firms themselves and third-party logistics companies
(Franceschini et al., 2003), both manufacturing companies and logistics companies were
the main targeted companies in this study.
4.5.2 Main findings
The main findings of Publication V were based on twenty-seven semi-structured
interviews in eleven companies and supplementary questionnaire survey responses from
the interviewees. Six product lifecycle (PLC) sub-phases were analyzed, among which
R&D, purchasing, and production represented the beginning-of-life (BOL) phase, and
logistics, customer service, and sales represented middle-of-life (MOL) phase. In this
study, the analysis of knowledge sharing focused on the knowledge senders who initiated
the knowledge movement from the sender to the receiver, and the analysis of knowledge
reuse focused on the potential knowledge receivers who were inclined to seek and acquire
knowledge from the senders. The main findings on knowledge management practices
within single PLC phases and between the two PLC phases are presented as follows.
As the object of knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse, although the knowledge
used/required were different between all the sub-phases under investigation, similarities
were found not only within single product lifecycle (PLC) phases, but also between all
the PLC sub-phases. The necessity to implement standardization and systemization in the
work was demonstrated as process/procedure knowledge was required to be frequently
used in all sub-phases. The commonly used expertise and product knowledge in all sub-
phases on the one hand indicated the importance of this knowledge, on the other hand it
also revealed that the focus of the requirement for the same type of knowledge was
different corresponding with distinct job positions and responsibilities. It was also found
that production knowledge and supplier knowledge were only used during the BOL
phase, whereas commonly used customer knowledge in the MOL phase was only used in
the R&D sub-phase of the BOL phase. Only expertise and process/procedure knowledge
were considered equally important by all the interviewees during the different PLC sub-
phases, while the degree of importance of other knowledge was not the same.
The findings on knowledge sharing focused on the sender’s side. The scope and degree
of knowledge sharing were different between different PLC sub-phases. For knowledge
sharing within the company, the practices between the BOL phase and the MOL phase
were fairly different. Except for the R&D sub-phase, which was the most extensive one
and shared knowledge with all other sub-phases except logistics, while for the other two
sub-phases in the BOL phases, knowledge was mainly shared within the same PLC phase
(BOL). However, during the three sub-phases of the MOL phase knowledge was mostly
shared with the BOL phase, rather than within their own PLC phase (MOL). This
knowledge sharing pattern indicated the close cooperation between the sub-phases within
the BOL phase, and relatively independent responsibilities of the sub-phases in the MOL
phase. In addition, knowledge sharing between the MOL and BOL phases would
smoothen the operation of the company. With regards to the knowledge sharing
4 Summary of the publications and results 92
mechanism, mentor was the one who adopted it only within the same sub-phase. The
mechanism selection corresponded to the characteristics of the job position, the
knowledge involved, and the urgency level of the task, etc. For instance, job rotation and
social media were the unique knowledge sharing mechanisms in logistics sub-phase.
Confidentiality and non-relevance to the potential receiver were the two most impeding
factors to knowledge sharing, while top management support and a sharing/learning
culture were the two most facilitating factors.
Focusing on the receiver’s side, knowledge reuse was embedded in their daily work. Both
the scope of knowledge seeking, and the mechanisms adopted showed a similar pattern
to knowledge sharing. The crucial role of R&D was revealed from the knowledge reuse
pattern as all the sub-phases acquired and reused the knowledge from R&D. When
seeking knowledge for the purpose of reuse, the most influencing factor was the
usefulness of the knowledge. A source’s credibility was a key concern for source
selection, while the possibility to obtain the knowledge, the convenience of the
mechanism, and the importance/urgency level of the task were the most influencing
factors for the mechanism selection. In addition to this, although a knowledge repository
could be found in all the companies in this study, the person-to-person mechanism was
still preferred in all the sub-phases, whenever possible.
IT application was different in the different product lifecycle (PLC) phases and was
consistent with the corresponding responsibilities of the employees during those phases.
Although in general emails, intranet, and workflow systems were intensively used in all
PLC sub-phases surveyed, the application of intranet systems was much lower in
customer service compared to all other sub-phases. Digitalization will enable more
knowledge reuse in the future. By reducing the associated money and time cost,
digitalization made knowledge reuse easier, which accelerated new product development.
By providing a comprehensive and convenient knowledge repository and platform,
digitalization facilitated knowledge sharing and strengthened the cooperation between the
PLC sub-phases. However, also challenges posed by digitalization, including but not
limited to data security, large investments, and timely maintenance, need to be dealt with
by the companies.
4.5.3 Main contributions
Publication V investigated knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse practices in different
product lifecycle (PLC) phases (beginning-of-life [BOL], and middle-of-life [MOL]) and
sub-phases (R&D, purchasing, and production in the BOL phase, and logistics, customer
service, and sales in the MOL phase) from a PSS provider’s perspective, and the impact
of digitalization was also taken into account. The similarities and differences in
knowledge management practices within and between BOL and MOL phases were
identified in this study. In particular, this study investigated knowledge sharing from the
knowledge sender’s perspective and knowledge reuse from the knowledge receiver’s
perspective. Through this effort, Publication V extended the current knowledge
4.5 Publication V: Sharing and reusing knowledge for innovation and
competitiveness in PSS
93
93
management literature towards a more concrete, fine-grained understanding of
knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse from the PLC perspective in the PSS context.
Based on the empirical findings, several guidelines for PSS providers were offered to
facilitate better knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse in the digital era. First of all, the
unique knowledge requirements in each product lifecycle (PLC) sub-phases should be
clearly identified. Only the correct understanding of the knowledge requirements between
the sender and the receiver will enable more efficient knowledge sharing and reuse
between the different PLC phases and sub-phases. Secondly, a match should be made
between the knowledge shared/sourced and the knowledge transfer mechanism used, and
this is especially important for knowledge reuse. A variety of factors should be evaluated
simultaneously but priority must be made based on the unique context. The factors
include: knowledge and task characteristics, convenience of the mechanism, the sender’s
credibility, and the receiver’s knowledge requirements, etc. Thirdly, it is important to
create a culture/mechanism to retain competent employees in the company, and this is
especially crucial in the digital age. Digitalization makes knowledge requirements
broader and more in-depth, which thus leads greater requirements for the integration of
multi-disciplinary knowledge. No matter how efficient knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse are in the company, it is still impossible to replicate a person’s
knowledge because of the tacit knowledge possessed. Therefore, competent people will
be a crucial resource for the company. Fourthly, investment in knowledge management,
such as building knowledge repositories and knowledge sharing platforms, should be
strengthened whenever possible. In most of the companies studied, the development was
based on incremental, rather than radical innovation, implying more knowledge reuse. As
such, investment to facilitate knowledge sharing and reuse should be emphasized to
facilitate knowledge sharing and reuse for future employees.
95
5 Discussion and conclusions
The focus of this thesis was on knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse
strategies/practices in the product-service systems (PSS) context from a product lifecycle
(PLC) perspective. By providing an integrated bundle of tangible products and intangible
services, PSS has the potential to bring economic and ecological benefits. Transforming
companies from being traditional manufacturers to PSS providers is not easy as the
manufacturers need to collaborate with all the relevant stakeholders with different
responsibilities throughout the entire product lifecycle (PLC). This indicates the
requirements of integrating diverse knowledge, which inherently makes knowledge and
its management ever more crucial and challenging. The two interrelated and inseparable
knowledge management processes, i.e., knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse are
considered to be more crucial in the PSS context due to their potential to overcome the
rebound effects found in PSS. Based on this, the purpose of this thesis was to increase the
understanding of knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse in the PSS context from a PLC
perspective.
5.1 Answering the research questions
The main research question of this thesis was ‘What are the knowledge management
practices/strategies in (industrial) companies in the product-service systems context from
a product lifecycle perspective in the digital era?’ Six sub research questions were
defined to structure the research efforts and have been addressed through the findings of
the individual publications. All the individual publications of the thesis played an
important role to form the overall contribution of the thesis.
The first sub research question ‘SQ1: What is the current state of empirical studies on
PSS and what are the focuses of these studies?’ was answered by Publication I. Based on
a systematic literature review of 70 peer-reviewed journal articles published between
2006 and 2016, Publication I confirmed that empirical PSS research has been in high
demand in the past decade. With regards to the focuses of the empirical PSS studies, seven
themes were identified based on the objectives and focuses of the studies, namely: the
PSS design approach, approaches facilitating PSS design, PSS transformation drivers, the
PSS status quo, PSS evaluation, PSS functions, and PSS impacts. Regarding the research
method used, a qualitative case study was used by 84% of the studies, and about two
thirds from them adopted a single case study method.
The status of PSS development could be summarized from three perspectives. First, being
accepted as a research stream. The existing empirical PSS research shows that PSS had
been widely accepted in academia as reflected by the distribution of journals with
published articles, as well as being applied globally in practice as reflected by the
geographic coverage of the publications. Second, from the evolution perspective, PSS
research was found to be still in its early stages as more than half of the studies focused
on product-oriented PSS. In addition, about 44% studies focused on PSS design. Thirdly,
5 Discussion and conclusions 96
the concept has been researched in both developed and emerging economies. Empirical
PSS studies were mostly from Europe (about two thirds of the studies) and Asia (about
one fourth of the studies). In particular, more than forty percent of the studies in Asia
were from China, indicating the emphasis of PSS research in the emerging economies.
Publication I answered SQ1 and contributed to the PSS research by presenting a
systematic literature review on empirical PSS studies. The review also provided
considerations for future PSS research. More quantitative studies and multiple case
studies should be done in the future to generalize and validate the existing findings.
Additionally, researchers should focus on PSS as a system comprised of different
stakeholders rather than a single entity. Thus, adopting a product lifecycle perspective
and integrating different stakeholders’ viewpoints would be valuable to enrich the PSS
research.
The second sub research question ‘SQ2: How does digitalization influence PLM in the
PSS context when treating PLM as the implementation of a knowledge management
strategy?’ was answered in Publication II. We analyzed 35 journal articles and conference
papers published between 1999 and 2017 with the focus on product lifecycle management
(PLM) strategies and digitalization in industry. It was found that from the data
collection’s perspective, digitalization enabled closed loop PLM by extending PLM to
the entire product lifecycle (PLC) in practice. This way it facilitated access and reuse of
more accurate and timely information and knowledge from different PLC phases and
helped to improve product quality as well as enhance the firm’s business opportunities
(Herterich et al., 2015; Kiritsis, 2011; Terzi et al., 2010). The impacts of digitalization
were different in the various PLC phases. During beginning-of-life (BOL) phase,
digitalization enabled real time monitoring of the manufacturing process to enhance
product and process development (Kuo and Wang, 2012; Patrick, 2008) and improve
energy management (Tao et al, 2016), and facilitated reusing knowledge from the middle-
of-life (MOL) phase to improve product design so that the time to market could be
reduced (Affonso et al., 2013). During the MOL phase, digitalization could enable data
collection from the communication and interaction between products and components
(Lerch and Gotsch, 2015) to ensure the through-life performance and reduce the through-
life cost through more efficient logistics and energy management (Främling et al., 2013),
as well as predictive and preventive maintenance (Jun, Shin, Kim, Kiritsis, and
Xirouchakis, 2009; Tao et al., 2016). During the end-of-life (EOL) phase, digitalization
enabled the tracing, detecting, storing, and analyzing of the PLC data for each individual
item. It could help to predict and estimate the quality and value of the end-of-use products,
and consequently enhance the EOL decision-making and improve the EOL treatment
performance (Chen, Yi, Zhu, Jiang, and Ju, 2017; Li et al, 2015). By answering SQ2,
Publication II contributed to improving the current understanding of the impact of
digitalization on PLM. From the knowledge management perspective, digitalization
enhanced PLM by facilitating the knowledge exchange between various stakeholders
throughout the entire PLC on the one hand, while on the other hand it brought challenges
to knowledge management due to the various forms and huge volume of data generated
and the security issues. Only with successful knowledge exchange, can the benefits of
digitalization be achieved.
5.1 Answering the research questions
97
97
The third sub research question ‘SQ3: What is the current state of the art of knowledge
management practices in PSS from a PLC perspective?’ was answered in Publication III
through a systematic literature review of 58 journal articles and conference papers
published from 1995 to 2017. These findings indicated that research in this area has been
increasing in recent years. Knowledge requirements differ according to product lifecycle
(PLC) phases. In particular, R&D personnel, especially designers, had higher
consideration of the product’s lifecycle knowledge (Smith and Duffy, 2001), as well as
the policies/regulations in different countries (i.e. Ongondo and Williams, 2001).
Knowledge generated in a particular PLC phase could be used in different PLC phases
with different focuses (i.e., Ahmed-Kristensen and Vianello, 2014). In addition,
knowledge from the middle-of-life (MOL) phase seemed to be more crucial for use-
oriented PSS (Roy et al., 2014). Although both codification and personalization strategies
were adopted in knowledge sharing, person-to-person communication was still preferred
by designers (Ahmed-Kristensen and Vianello, 2014). Moreover, MOL knowledge was
mainly shared within MOL itself and with poor sharing between different PLC phases
(Vianello and Ahmed, 2012). With regards to knowledge reuse, models/frameworks
introduced at the beginning-of-life (BOL) phase were large in number and more
comprehensive than models targeting the middle-of-life (MOL) or end-of-life (EOL)
phases.
Through answering SQ3, Publication III contributed to knowledge management in PSS
from the PLC perspective and provided propositions to both academia and practitioners.
To academia, it proposed that (1) identifying and classifying the knowledge requirements
of different stakeholders along the PLC phases would be important and valuable, and (2)
investigating knowledge reuse in the middle-of-life (MOL) and beginning-of-life (BOL)
phases would help to make the theory of knowledge management more comprehensive
in the PSS context. To practitioners, the study proposed that (1) stakeholders in PSS
contexts should provide knowledge in standardized forms and appropriate manners to
fulfill the knowledge requirements in different PLC phases, thus facilitating knowledge
sharing between different stakeholders or between different PLC phases, and (2) the
adoption of personalization and codification strategies should be based on the unique
context of the company itself rather than following any fixed ratio.
The fourth sub research question ‘SQ4: What are the knowledge requirements, knowledge
sharing and knowledge reuse strategies/practices in different PLC phases in the PSS
context?’ was answered by Publication IV and V from different perspectives. Publication
IV addressed this question from different stakeholders’ perspectives (i.e., manufacturing
companies and logistics companies). Manufacturing companies represented the
beginning-of-life (BOL) phase (e.g., design sub-phase related to R&D) and logistics
companies represented the middle-of-life (MOL) phase (e.g., distribution sub-phase
related to external logistics). The authors found that the knowledge requirements were
different for the BOL and MOL phases. Some knowledge (such as expertise) was used
by all the companies but with different focuses, whereas some knowledge was only used
in a particular product lifecycle (PLC) phase. For instance market knowledge was used
only in the BOL phase and industry knowledge was only used in the MOL phase.
5 Discussion and conclusions 98
Knowledge sharing both within and beyond the company’s boundaries (between the
company and suppliers or customers) was important and necessary. In the BOL phase
companies would not share knowledge with their competitors, but during the MOL phase,
companies frequently shared knowledge with competitors to gain mutual benefits.
Similarly, knowledge reuse was important and embedded in the daily work in both the
BOL and MOL phases, and it was reported by some companies as a principle in the daily
work in BOL phase. It should be noted that based on the company’s innovation strategy,
i.e., whether it is more radically oriented or incrementally oriented, the emphasis on the
reuse of existing knowledge or new knowledge application was different, thus a balance
was needed. With regards to knowledge transfer mechanisms, the most commonly
adopted knowledge sharing mechanism was training in both the BOL and MOL phases,
whereas job rotation and social media were used in the MOL phase only. Regarding
knowledge seeking mechanisms, during the BOL phase expertise was acquired through
learning-by-doing and person-to-person communication was preferred, whereas during
the MOL phase such knowledge was acquired from the government and participating in
meetings organized by the government was preferred.
By answering SQ4, Publication IV shed light on PSS research by investigating the
similarities and differences in knowledge management practices in the PSS context from
different stakeholders’ perspectives and from a product lifecycle (PLC) perspective, and
enhanced the understanding of knowledge management in manufacturing firms (i.e.,
representing the beginning-of-life [BOL] phase) by investigating knowledge
management practices in logistics companies (i.e., representing the middle-of-life [MOL]
phase) in the PSS context.
Publication V addressed SQ4 from PSS provider’s (i.e., manufacturing company’s)
perspectives by considering both the BOL (i.e., R&D, purchasing, and production) and
the MOL (i.e., logistics, customer service, and sales) phases. Through the case studies,
we found that process/procedure knowledge was used frequently in all product lifecycle
(PLC) sub-phases, indicating the necessity for standardization and systemization in the
work. The focuses for the same types of knowledge were different based on particular job
positions and responsibilities. Expertise and process/procedure knowledge were
considered equally important in all PLC sub-phases. In contrast, other types knowledge
had varying importance in the different sub-phases. Some knowledge was only used in
the BOL phase (i.e., production knowledge and supplier knowledge).
With regards to knowledge sharing, the scope and degree were different in different PLC
sub-phases, both within and outside the company. The authors found that the R&D sub-
phase shared knowledge with all other sub-phases except logistics, while the other two
BOL sub-phases mainly shared knowledge within the BOL phase. The three sub-phases
of the MOL phase (i.e., logistics, customer service, and sales) mostly shared knowledge
with the BOL phase, rather than sharing it within the MOL phase. The knowledge seeking
scope of knowledge reuse was similar to that of knowledge sharing. R&D seemed to be
the most important sub-phase as the knowledge from R&D was acquired and reused in
all the other sub-phases. With regard to knowledge transfer mechanisms, mentor was the
5.1 Answering the research questions
99
99
one that only used within the same sub-phase, and job rotation and social media were
unique mechanisms in logistics sub-phase. In addition, the person-to-person mechanism
was preferred in all the sub-phases, even though a knowledge repository existed in all the
studied companies. Factors affecting the mechanism selection for both knowledge sharing
and knowledge seeking (for reuse) were the knowledge involved, the importance/urgency
level of the task, and the convenience of the mechanism. However, the characteristics of
the job position affected the mechanism selection for knowledge sharing, whereas the
possibility to obtain the knowledge affected the mechanism selection for knowledge
seeking. By answering SQ4, Publication V extended the current knowledge management
literature towards a more concrete, fine-grained understanding of knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse from a PLC perspective in the PSS context.
The fifth sub research question ‘SQ5: What are the enablers and barriers to knowledge
sharing and knowledge reuse in different PLC phases in the PSS context?’ was answered
by Publications IV and V. From both publications, it was found that the ability of the
sender, top management support and the sharing/learning culture were the most important
facilitating factors for knowledge sharing, while confidentiality and non-relevance were
the most prohibiting factors. Knowledge will not be shared if it breaches confidential
limits or if the sender perceives it as irrelevant to the potential receiver. For knowledge
seeking (for reuse), the most influencing factors were the usefulness of the knowledge
and the credibility of the knowledge source (sender) for both the beginning-of-life (BOL)
and middle-of-life (MOL) phases. In addition, familiarity with the knowledge was
indicated for the R&D sub-phase as an important influencing factor, while standardization
of the knowledge influenced knowledge reuse in the MOL phase.
The sixth sub research question ‘SQ6: How does digitalization influence the above-
mentioned requirements, strategies/practices, and enablers/barriers in the above-
mentioned context?’ was answered by Publication IV and V. Both publications clearly
indicated the benefits brought by digitalization, such as allowing more efficient and
accurate feedback and tracing, promoting international cooperation, reducing time/money
cost, reducing the workload, enabling more convenient data access and faster data
analysis, providing better guidance for decision-making, and creating a better business
environment. With regards to the knowledge requirements, the range of knowledge
required became broader and cross-disciplinary knowledge became more important,
which naturally increased the importance of knowledge integration as well as highly
competent personnel. Documenting and archiving knowledge became easier with the help
of standardization facilitated by digitalization, which essentially positively impacted
knowledge sharing and reuse, for example, by providing a comprehensive knowledge
repository and convenient knowledge sharing platform. Digitalization called for more
knowledge reuse because of the requirement for more cross-disciplinary knowledge. At
the same time, digitalization facilitated knowledge reuse due to its ability to reduce the
money and time cost of the reuse, which finally led to faster new product development.
Along with the benefits, digitalization brought challenges as well, such as issues related
to data security, the large investments needed, and timely maintenance requirements.
5 Discussion and conclusions 100
The combined contribution of the five individual publications was related to the main
research question: ‘What are the knowledge management practices/strategies in
(industrial) companies in the product-service systems context from a product lifecycle
perspective in the digital era?’. This constitutes the main contribution of this thesis from
both theoretical and practical perspectives and will be elaborated in detail in the next
section.
5.2 Contribution
This section discusses the theoretical contributions and managerial implications of the
thesis. As the main theoretical background of this thesis lies in the research streams of
product-service systems and knowledge management, the main contribution comes from
these streams. These contributions are summarized in Table 13 and discussed in detail in
the following sections.
Table 13. Contribution of the thesis
Research gap Contribution of the thesis Publication
Limited number of
empirical PSS
studies and no
literature review
focused on this area.
This thesis contributes to PSS development by
complementing the existing PSS review studies through a
systematic literature review specifically focusing on
empirical PSS studies.
This thesis enriched the empirical PSS studies by
investigating knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse
practice/strategies in the PSS context, thus answers the call
by Qu et al., (2016) for research to seek empirical knowledge
management practices in PSS operations.
All
publications
Incomprehensive
understanding of the
impact of
digitalization on
PLM in PSS
context.
This thesis reviewed the impact of digitalization on PLM for
manufacturing companies in the PSS context by treating
PLM as the implementation case of a knowledge
management strategy.
Digitalization was found to facilitate PLM by promoting the
information exchange between the stakeholders throughout
the entire PLC from the knowledge management perspective.
II
Lack of knowledge
management studies
in PSS from PLC
perspective.
This thesis extended the current knowledge management
literature towards a more concrete, fine-grained
understanding of knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse in
the PSS context from a PLC perspective.
The current study investigated knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse together and distinguished them by
focusing on knowledge sharing from the knowledge sender’s
perspective and knowledge reuse from the knowledge
receiver’s perspective.
Empirical investigation of knowledge sharing and reuse
practices in different PLC phases and sub-phases brings
clarity to the managerial implications of knowledge
management in the PSS context.
III, IV, and
V
5.2 Contribution
101
101
The standardization and systemization of work was found to
be important in all PLC sub-phases to guarantee the quality
of work.
This study enhanced the understanding of the influencing
factors surrounding knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse
by separating people-related factors (i.e., summarized in the
MAO framework) and mechanism-selection-related factors
(i.e., explained by the TAM).
Challenges exist in
finding suitable
ways to make
digitalization play a
greater role in
knowledge
management.
This thesis investigated the impact of digitalization on knowledge
requirements, knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse in
different PLC phases in the PSS context empirically. It was found
that:
More knowledge reuse will be required in the future due to
digitalization.
Digitalization facilitated standardization thus made it easier
to document and archive knowledge.
Digitalization facilitated codified knowledge sharing and
reuse by providing comprehensive knowledge repositories
and convenient knowledge sharing platforms.
Digitalization made knowledge reuse easier by reducing the
associated money and time cost.
Digitalization may not always facilitate knowledge sharing
and knowledge reuse as person-to-person mechanisms were
still preferred in the company.
To deal with the challenges related to data security, large
investments, and timely maintenance, the thesis suggested that the
company should:
Using both personalization and codification strategies to
ensuring the right knowledge can be transferred to the right
people.
Emphasize the importance of competent people/personnel.
Advocate standardization within and beyond the
manufacturing firm’s boundaries.
Invest not only on monetary rewards and staff training, but
also on items such as knowledge repositories, knowledge
sharing/reuse platforms, and data management.
II, IV, V
5.2.1 Theoretical contributions
Considering the lack of empirical studies, especially knowledge management related
studies in the PSS context, this study investigated knowledge sharing and knowledge
reuse strategies/practices in a product-service systems context from a product lifecycle
perspective in the digital era.
5 Discussion and conclusions 102
Firstly, this thesis contributes to product-service systems (PSS) development by
complementing the existing PSS review studies (i.e., Baines et al., 2007; Boehm and
Thomas, 2013; Kjaer et al., 2016; Lightfoot et al., 2013; Nudurupati et al., 2016; Qu et
al., 2016; Reim et al., 2015; Tukker, 2015; Tukker and Tischner, 2006; Vasantha et al.,
2012). The systematic literature review in this dissertation specifically focusing on
empirical PSS studies, thus contributes to PSS development by providing possible
directions or considerations for future empirical PSS research. From the perspective of
research methodology, increasing the number of quantitative PSS studies would be
suggested to help to generalize and validate the findings because most of the existing
empirical PSS studies were qualitative in nature. More specifically, single-case study was
the dominating research approach. With regards to the research scope or the unit of
analysis, researchers should focus on PSS as a system comprising of various stakeholders
rather than a single entity. Relating to the system, a lifecycle perspective is crucial in the
PSS context. However, only a very limited number of the existing empirical PSS studies
took this into account. Therefore, future PSS research should think about the product
lifecycle perspective and integrate the viewpoints of different stakeholders.
Secondly, this thesis enriched the empirical PSS studies by investigating knowledge
sharing and knowledge reuse practice/strategies in the PSS context, thus answers the call
by Qu et al., (2016) for research to seek empirical knowledge management practices in
PSS operations. Conducting empirical case studies from different stakeholders’
perspectives (that is, the PSS provider, manufacturing company, and the related logistics
company) and from product lifecycle (PLC) perspective (that is, considering the
beginning-of-life [BOL] phase, and the middle-of-life phase [MOL]), this thesis figured
out the similarities and differences of knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse
practice/strategies and the corresponding mechanisms in different PLC phases (i.e., BOL
and MOL). In addition, it enhanced the understanding of knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse in manufacturing firms (BOL) by investigating knowledge management
practices in logistics companies (MOL) simultaneously.
Thirdly, this dissertation extended the current knowledge management literature towards
a more concrete, fine-grained understanding of knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse.
As two interrelated and inseparable knowledge management processes, knowledge
sharing and knowledge reuse are related to different focuses and needs (Kankanhalli et
al., 2005; Watson and Hewett, 2006). However, little research has been conducted to
study both knowledge sharing and reuse systematically (He and Wei, 2009). The current
study not only investigated knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse together in the PSS
context, but also distinguished them by focusing on knowledge sharing from the
knowledge sender’s perspective and knowledge reuse from the knowledge receiver’s
perspective. In addition, knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse are crucial in the PSS
context as they can be used to overcome the rebound effects from the prolonged product
life in PSS (Chierici and Copani, 2016; Goh and McMahon, 2009). The limited number
of existing empirical studies on knowledge sharing and reuse in the PSS context were
mainly focused on knowledge sharing and reuse during the BOL phase and with limited
attention paid to the MOL phase (Baxter et al., 2009; Cai et al., 2014; Durst and
5.2 Contribution
103
103
Evangelista, 2018). By investigating knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse practices
in different product lifecycle (PLC) phases (the BOL and MOL phases) and sub-phases
(R&D, purchasing, and production in BOL, and logistics, customer service, and sales in
MOL) from the PSS provider’s perspective, this thesis brings clarity to the managerial
implications of knowledge management in the PSS context.
The standardization and systemization of work was found to be important in all PLC sub-
phases to guarantee the quality of work. Most of the extant studies have focused on the
importance and usefulness of using MOL knowledge in the BOL phase for current
product improvement and future new product design (i.e., Hassanain et al., 2014; Igba et
al., 2015; Roy et al., 2014). However, the current study indicated that seeking and reusing
knowledge from the BOL phase, especially from the R&D sub-phase, was a prevalent
phenomenon in both the BOL and MOL phases to increase the efficiency of work. With
regards to knowledge sharing, the MOL phase was found to share knowledge mainly
within MOL phase itself and there was poor sharing of knowledge with BOL phase in the
case of oil industry (Vianello and Ahmed, 2012). However, the current study found that
except for R&D sub-phase, the BOL phase mainly shared knowledge within the BOL
phase itself and rarely shared knowledge with MOL phase. In contrast, the MOL phase
mainly shared knowledge with the BOL phase, rather than sharing knowledge within the
MOL phase itself, which contradicts the existing literature. This can be explained by the
fact that the actors within the BOL sub-phases need to cooperate closely with each other
to ensure that production is completed on time and to quality standards, whereas the
responsibilities of each MOL sub-phase were relatively independent and they cooperated
with BOL phase to smooth the operation of the company.
Fourthly, this study enhanced the understanding of the influencing factors surrounding
knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse. Although certain motivators have similar
impacts on both knowledge sharing (from the knowledge sender’s perspective) and
knowledge reuse (especially knowledge seeking from the knowledge recipient’s
perspective), such as the positive impact of trust and the negative impact of the effort
required, there are different motivations for knowledge sharing and seeking as well (He
and Wei, 2009). This thesis investigated the influencing factors of knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse by separating people-related factors (i.e., summarized in the Motivation-
Ability-Opportunity framework [MAO]) and mechanism-selection-related factors (i.e.,
explained by the Technology Acceptance Model [TAM]). With regards to people-related
factors: (1) For the motivation related factors, this study found that knowledge sharing
was facilitated by intrinsic motivation, such as self-efficacy, which was consistent with
the literature (Wasko and Faraj, 2000), but not significantly affected by extrinsic
motivation. (2) For the ability related factors, this study found that knowledge sharing
was facilitated by the knowledge sender’s disseminative capacity and knowledge reuse
(especially knowledge seeking) was highly influenced by the recipient’s absorptive
capacity, which was consistent with the existing literature (i.e., Parent et al., 2007;
Reagans and McEvily, 2003). This impact was more significant for the personnel in R&D
departments in the current research settings. (3) For the opportunity related factors, a
learning culture in the company was found to facilitate knowledge sharing and reuse,
5 Discussion and conclusions 104
which was consistent with the literature (Mueller, 2014). In particular, top management
support was very important to motivate knowledge sharing in the company. With regards
to the mechanism selection related factors: (1) Perceived usefulness affected the
mechanism selection for both knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse. For instance,
mentor (with a high degree of richness) was used within each product lifecycle sub-phase,
and social media (high reach) was popularly used in the MOL phase, especially in the
logistics sub-phase. (2) The impact of the perceived ease of use on mechanism selection
was significant for both knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse. For instance, social
media was used frequently in the logistics sub-phase because it was convenient and easy
to use, as well as very fast. In addition, this study found that person-to-person mechanisms
were still preferred in the company, especially in the R&D sub-phase. This to some extent
reflectes that digitalization may not always facilitate knowledge sharing and knowledge
reuse (Vuori et al., 2019).
Lastly, this thesis contributed to the knowledge management and PSS literature by
investigating the impact of digitalization on knowledge management in the PSS context.
Treating product lifecycle management (PLM) as the implementation case of a
knowledge management strategy, this thesis reviewed the impact of digitalization on
PLM for manufacturing companies in the PSS context. From the knowledge management
perspective, although the impacts of digitalization were different during the various PLC
phases, digitalization was found to facilitate PLM by promoting the information exchange
between the stakeholders throughout the entire product lifecycle (PLC) (Herterich et al.,
2015; Kiritsis, 2011). At the same time, digitalization brought challenges to knowledge
management due to the various forms of data generated, the huge volume of data created,
and the security issues. The benefits of digitalization cannot be achieved without
successful knowledge exchange. Empirically, this thesis investigated the impact of
digitalization on knowledge requirements, knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse in
different product lifecycle (PLC) phases in the PSS context. It was found that
digitalization facilitated standardization, which made documenting and archiving of
knowledge easier. By providing a comprehensive knowledge repository and convenient
knowledge sharing platform, digitalization facilitated codified knowledge sharing and
reuse. Digitalization made knowledge reuse easier by reducing the associated money and
time cost, and thus accelerated new product development. In addition, digitalization will
require more knowledge reuse in the future because of the requirement for more cross-
disciplinary knowledge in the digital era. Along with the benefits, digitalization brought
challenges as well, including issues related to data security, large investments, and timely
maintenance.
5.2.2 Managerial implications
Based on the findings about the current status of knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse
practices/strategies in the interviewed companies, this study proposed several guidelines
for PSS providers to facilitate knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse and remain
competitive in the digital era.
5.2 Contribution
105
105
Firstly, it is essential to identify the knowledge requirements in different PLC phases and
sub-phases. Different types of knowledge were required in the different PLC phases and
sub-phases, and with different focuses. Except for expertise and process/procedure
knowledge, which were equally important throughout the entire PLC, the importance of
other types of knowledge were not the same in different PLC phases. In addition, with
the transition of the company from selling products (as a traditional manufacturer) to
selling solutions (as a PSS provider), the importance of different types of knowledge
changed accordingly. To facilitate knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse, the specific
knowledge requirements in each PLC sub-phases should be identified, including the
types, focuses and importance of knowledge required. By doing so, a correct
understanding of the knowledge requirements will exist between both the sender and
receiver, thus ensuring the right knowledge can be transferred to the right people. This
can be achieved by using both personalization and codification strategies. Codification
facilitates standardization, and thus reduces confusion about the meaning of the
knowledge. Personalization, such as training, especially training organized by other
functional departments, enables awareness of the knowledge requirements in other
departments.
Secondly, it is important to advocate standardization. In the PSS context, products are
dealt with within and beyond the manufacturing firm’s boundaries and processed by
different stakeholders. In addition, the volumes and forms of data are increasing
significantly with the development of digitalization. From the manufacturing company’s
perspective, within the company it is important to provide standardized data (i.e., input
data) and standardized archiving of documents so that the knowledge can be shared and
reused between different departments with minimum confusion or misunderstanding;
whereas beyond the company’s boundaries, it is important to provide industry-recognized
data and interfaces so that the relevant stakeholders can use and analyze the data from
various domains. From a broader or higher perspective, the company should promote
industry standards as only a widely recognized standard that every company must follow
will realize smooth knowledge exchange in the PSS context.
Thirdly, it is critical to emphasize the importance of competent people/personnel. No
matter how advanced the technology is, people are always indispensable, because the
process is managed, controlled, implemented and realized by people. The development
of digitalization has changed customer needs and even generated new ones. Within the
same discipline/domain, the requirements for knowledge have become more in-depth,
whereas cross-domain or even cross-industry customer needs require possible multi-
disciplinary knowledge integration. The latter is much more complicated than in-depth
knowledge in the same discipline. The competence or ability of people will affect
knowledge sharing and reuse intentions and results, which to some extent depend on the
disseminative capacity of the sender and the absorptive capacity of the receiver. In
addition, even if the company has excellent processes/procedures and a standardized
knowledge repository, it is still difficult to fully replicate an individual’s knowledge due
to the important tacit knowledge possessed by that person. Therefore, on the one hand, it
is crucial for the company to recognize and emphasize the importance of highly
5 Discussion and conclusions 106
competent personnel, which can be achieved through means such as higher recruitment
requirements for new employees and by continuously organizing training. On the other
hand, it is important for the company to create a culture/mechanism to retain competent
employees in the company, which could be realized through means such as more
appropriate performance evaluation and rewarding systems, improved task design, etc.
Fourthly, it is necessary to strengthen external collaboration. In the PSS context, it is
impossible for a single company to provide a complete product-service offering to the
customer, thus collaboration with other companies is essential. Long-term collaboration
could motivate more knowledge exchange due to the accumulated reciprocal benefits,
which has been demonstrated in various collaborations between manufacturing
companies and their suppliers. For instance, the knowledge or innovation from a supplier
could accelerate a manufacturing company’s R&D process, while the knowledge from
the manufacturing company could guide the R&D and production direction of the
supplier. In addition, collaborating with external companies which have specialized in
complementary domains could potentially generate cross-domain and cross-industry
ideas to meet customers’ needs through the reuse of external knowledge, which is one
way to remain competitive in the ever-changing environment.
Fifthly, it is important match the knowledge shared/sourced and the mechanism used. An
appropriate mechanism should not only enhance the efficacy of knowledge sharing and
reuse, but also encourage people to share and reuse knowledge. To realize this, the job
position, the knowledge characteristics, the task characteristics, the sender’s credibility,
the receiver’s knowledge requirements, and the convenience of the mechanism should be
considered simultaneously but the priority should be based on different contexts. For
instance, if multi-department cooperation is required to solve an urgent problem, the most
efficient mechanism will be to hold a meeting, no matter whether it is face-to-face or
virtual, so that rich knowledge can be shared and discussed instantly. If an urgent problem
can be solved by cooperation between two parties, a phone call plus digital flow (in the
digital systems) would be more convenient and economical. If the matter is not urgent but
focuses on in-depth and tacit knowledge transfer, mentor may be preferred.
Sixthly, but not lastly, it is important and necessary to invest. The benefits of knowledge
management, digitalization, and PSS are not free. Capable personnel who are willing to
share and reuse knowledge are a prerequisite for successful knowledge sharing and reuse.
To fulfill knowledge sharing and reuse, the company must provide opportunities for
employees to share and reuse knowledge, which involves various investments of the
company. Due to the shorter PLC of the current physical products, more knowledge reuse
will be required because incremental innovation will be preferred, and knowledge reuse
could speed up the R&D and production processes as well as reduce costs. As such,
investments in items such as knowledge repositories, knowledge sharing/reuse platforms,
and data management systems will be necessary. With digitalization, the security related
issues such as confidentiality, integrity, and data availability throughout the entire PLC
have to be addressed to make sure that only authorized parties can access the data in an
5.3 Limitation and suggestions for future research
107
107
appropriate manner when needed. As such, investment in data protection is important and
necessary, including but not limited to hardware, software, and personnel.
5.3 Limitation and suggestions for future research
Some limitations should be considered when interpreting the results of this study, which
provides avenues for future research. First, the empirical data was collected from
companies operating in China by interviewing the managers or senior staff in the
department or in the company. Limiting the sample to the Chinese context may present
limitations, because the environmental factors, which could to some extent represent
opportunities in the Motivation-Ability-Opportunity framework, are not the same in
different countries, for instance the development of digitalization. The influencing factors
of knowledge sharing and reuse in one context may not be applicable to other contexts.
However, this specific context can still provide fruitful insights as PSS related research
has been increasing in China in the past decades (i.e., Tukker, 2015) and both industry
and academia in China have been aware of the importance of PSS. Nonetheless, extending
this research to other countries could enhance the generalizability of the results.
Therefore, it will be meaningful to conduct studies in other countries, especially in
developed countries, to compare the results with those from the emerging economy.
Secondly, the interviewees in this study were mostly managerial staff who were familiar
with knowledge management strategies/practices in the departments and in the company,
which also implies that their viewpoints would be different from general employees.
Management support facilitates knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse, but knowledge
sharing and reuse practices are fulfilled mostly by the general employees. Therefore,
further study collecting data from different levels of employees in the same department
would be valuable to make the results more comprehensive. In addition, choosing several
informants in the same departments would increase the credibility in interpreting the
results.
Thirdly, the companies interviewed in this study were from different industries but
limited in number, which made it impossible to compare the difference between
industries. Although the focus of this study is knowledge management in different
product lifecycle phases rather than in different industries, it must be admitted that the
focuses of knowledge management vary in different industries. For instance, a high-tech
company may be more focused on new knowledge creation and may reuse internal and
external knowledge for idea generation, whereas a mass consumer products oriented
company may be more focused on reusing knowledge to improve production efficiency.
This different focuses on knowledge management may have different influencing factors
for knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse even in the same PLC phase. Therefore,
further research extending the study into a particular industry and conducting interviews
in several companies in that industry would enhance the credibility of the results.
Additionally, extending the study to different industries to compare the results would
enhance the generalizability of the findings.
5 Discussion and conclusions 108
Fourthly, due to time and resource constraints, only the beginning-of-life (BOL) and
middle-of-life (MOL) phases in the product lifecycle (PLC) were considered in this study,
without any specific concern for the end-of-life (EOL) phase. To realize ecological
sustainability in PSS, the EOL phase is indispensable. Digitalization enables tracking and
accessing data throughout the entire PLC, which makes knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse in the EOL phase more valuable than before. With increasing
requirements for sustainability, it is thus meaningful and important to extend the current
study into the EOL phase, thus investigating knowledge sharing and reuse throughout the
entire PLC. It is believed that such findings could provide more guidelines to enhance
knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse practices throughout the entire PLC.
Fifthly, there are limitations related to the research methodologies adopted in this study.
The empirical data of this thesis was collected mainly through case studies following a
qualitative research methodology. The objective of this study was to explore knowledge
sharing and knowledge reuse strategies/practice in different PLC phases and to provide
suggestions to enhance knowledge sharing and reuse, rather than theory building or
hypothesis testing. Even though a qualitative research approach was considered to be
most suitable for investigating the current topic, the utilization of alternative approaches
could have been useful. For instance, surveying a large sample size of companies about
the influencing factors of knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse might have generated
a more systematic framework to guide practitioners in their knowledge management
practices. Therefore, a quantitative study could be conducted in the future to obtain more
testable and systematic guidelines for knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse.
109
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Publication I
Xin, Y., Ojanen, V., and Huiskonen, J.
Empirical studies on product-service systems: A systematic literature review
Reprinted with permission from
Procedia CIRP
Vol. 64, pp. 399-404, 2017
© 2017, Elsevier
Procedia CIRP 64 ( 2017 ) 399 – 404
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
2212-8271 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 9th CIRP IPSS Conference: Circular Perspectives on Product/Service-Systems.
doi: 10.1016/j.procir.2017.03.054
ScienceDirect
The 9th CIRP IPSS Conference: Circular Perspectives on Product/Service-Systems
Empirical Studies on Product-Service Systems – A Systematic Literature
Review
Yan Xin*, Ville Ojanen, Janne Huiskonen
Lappeenranta University of Technology, Skinnarilankatu 34, 53850 Lappeenranta, Finland
*Corresponding author Tel.: +358 29 44 64040; E-mail address: yan.xin@lut.fi
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to increase the understanding of empirical PSS research, and provide insights for future directions in PSS research.
Based on an in-depth systematic literature review of 70 journal articles, it was found that PSS practices have been widely applied across various
geographical and research areas. The majority of empirical research employed qualitative research method while large scale quantitative studies
are still scarce. In addition, a large portion of product-oriented PSS studies demonstrate that PSS is still in its early development stage in terms
of evolution. With regard to research themes, PSS design related studies are the focus of more than 40% studies.
© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 9th CIRP IPSS Conference: Circular Perspectives on Product/Service-
Systems.
Keywords: Product-service systems; Literature review; Empirical studies
1.Introduction
The rising global population, accelerating technological
development, increasing resource usage and intensifying
environmental impacts make sustainability as the key issue for
the entire society. With such a trend, product-service systems
(PSS) have become an emerging issue in both academia and
industry. As an ‘integrated bundle of products and services
which aims at creating customer utility and generating value’
[1], PSS is one of the most effective instruments that moves
society towards sustainability [2]. According to its evolution,
the classical categorization of PSS includes product-oriented
PSS, use-oriented PSS, and result-oriented PSS [3].
Since the clarifying of the PSS concept [4], PSS research
have been reviewed by many scholars from different
perspectives, including the establishment of key PSS domains
[3], overview of the PSS design methodologies [5],
contribution of knowledge production to PSS [6], and
supporting framework for product-, use- and result-oriented
business models [7]. PSS in different fields such as
Information Systems, Business Management, and Engineering
& Design [1] and special geographic area such as EU [8] have
been reviewed as well. In addition, especially through
lifecycle assessment, the challenges when evaluating PSS
have been identified [9]. In summary, PSS research has
progressed well [2] and PSS design seems to be still in its
initial stages of development [5].
Similar to other theories, the real world PSS practices are
important. However, none of the existing review papers
specially focused on empirical studies in PSS. As empirical
studies in PSS is still limited [10], and a better understanding
of the existing studies will shed light on the future direction
and contribute to PSS development. Therefore, this paper aims
to present a systematic literature review (LR) about empirical
PSS research in the existing publications, and thus provide an
overview to the development routes of PSS research.
In section 2, we will describe the search strategy and
present the descriptive analysis. The detailed review results
based on the categorization of product-, use-, result-oriented
PSS and others will be presented in section 3, and concluded
with future directions in section 4.
2.Search strategy and descriptive analysis
Considering the aim, we limited the language to English
and the search strings to ‘product service system*’, ‘product-
© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientifi c committee of the 9th CIRP IPSS Conference: Circular Perspectives on Product/Service-Systems.
400 Yan Xin et al. / Procedia CIRP 64 ( 2017 ) 399 – 404
service system*’, ‘empirical*’, ‘operation*’, and ‘appl*’ to
identify journal articles published between 1995 and 2016
using online database Scopus. The initial 357 articles were
then filtered on the basis of titles and abstracts, and reduced to
70 articles. As we focus on real world empirical studies, those
articles with hypothesized, exemplar, or simulated cases were
not included. These 70 articles were downloaded and analyzed
in terms of the research objectives, methodologies, application
status and findings. As no relevant articles were found before
2006, the main body of this systematic review comprises 70
peer-reviewed journal articles published from 2006 to 2016.
Figure 1 shows the distribution of publications over year. It
shows that the majority of the papers were published since
2012 or later, which accounts for about 80% of all the papers
reviewed. This may be due to the well processing of PSS
development and the calling for empirical research [2].
Fig.1.Distribution of publications over year
The distribution of the articles by journal shows that the
empirical studies in PSS are scattered across 33 journals,
which demonstrates the wide acceptance of PSS. 14 journals
with at least 2 articles in our review are listed in Table 1, and
cover 73% of the articles. The Journal of Cleaner Production
is the leading source with 11 articles, followed by Journal of
Manufacturing Technology Management, International
Journal of Operations and Production Management, and
International Journal of Production Research.
Table 1 Journals with at least two articles in the review
With regard to the methodology used, qualitative case
study approach dominates with 59 articles (accounts for 84%
of all the papers), followed by quantitative surveys with 6
papers. The remaining 5 papers employed a combination of
both methods. In addition, single case study articles account
for 64% of the case study research (38 papers). This confirms
that most of the existing literature on PSS were based on case
studies and application of survey or large number of cases was
scarce [2, 10].
Linking to the categorization of PSS, 36 articles fall into
product-oriented PSS (51%), 12 articles fall into use-oriented
PSS (17%), 16 articles fall into result-oriented PSS (23%), and
the remaining 6 papers are mix, or specifically indicated by
the authors as service-oriented. To some extent, the results
indicate PSS is still in its early stage in terms of evolution.
Based on the aims and focuses of the papers reviewed, we
divided them into 7 themes (Figure 2a) as PSS design
approach, approaches facilitating PSS design, PSS
transformation drivers (factors and approaches that initiate the
product-service transition), PSS status quo, PSS evaluation,
PSS function (extension or application of PSS concept), and
PSS impact (including economic, environmental, and social
impacts). Articles related to PSS design account for 44% of all
the articles. This is not surprising as the design of a new PSS
is one of the most challenging tasks for companies due to its
rare existence in the market.
Fig. 2. Themes in the LR Fig. 2b. Distribution of publications over area
As normally the first author organizes the research, we
identified the distribution of publications over area by
analyzing the first author’s affiliation (Figure 2b). European
studies (including UK) dominate with 47 articles (67%),
followed by Asia with 17 articles (24%). America and
Oceania contribute to the remaining 6 articles. It should be
noted that there is only one paper first authored by a
researcher in US, indicating a lack of attention to PSS practice
in US. For the studies in Europe, researchers in UK, North
Europe, and Germany altogether contribute to 80% of the
papers. In particular, studies in UK focus more on PSS
transformation drivers (8 papers, about 44% of UK studies).
For the 17 articles in Asia, the top three contributors are China
(7 articles, 41%), Japan (18%), and Taiwan (18%). In
particular, the studies in China focus on approaches facilitate
PSS design (71% of the papers in China).
3.Empirical PSS studies
3.1.Empirical product-oriented PSS studies
In this LR, 36 papers belong to product-oriented PSS, and
the top three themes involved are PSS transformation drivers
(12 articles, 33%), approaches facilitating PSS design (10
articles), and PSS design approach (5 articles). We will
discuss the findings in detail in terms of the research themes.
Under the ‘PSS transformation drivers’ theme, the transfer
of PSS concept from academia to industry was more likely to
be completed in the firms which had already used the service
type of transaction and built the requisite capability to support
Journal Numer of articles
Journal of Cleaner Production 11
Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management 6
International Journal of Operations and Production Management 5
International Journal of Production Research 5
CIRP Journal of Manufacturing Science and Technology 4
Business Process Management Journal 3
Expert Systems with Applications 3
CIRP Annals - Manufacturing Technology 2
Computers in Industry 2
Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing 2
Mathematical Problems in Engineering 2
Production Planning and Control 2
Service Industries Journal
Sustainability 2
401 Yan Xin et al. / Procedia CIRP 64 ( 2017 ) 399 – 404
this [11]. Limiting the uncertainty and complexity in service
operations, realizing scale and pooling effects, deploying
multi-purpose resources, using installed base data, and
surpassing functional barriers were the strategic guidelines
towards successful PSS [12]. In addition, PSS innovation
capabilities should be developed through progression of
routines over early PSS development stages [13]. Critical
challenges have also been identified, such as embedded
product-service culture, delivery of integrated offering,
internal processes and capabilities, strategic alignment,
supplier relationships [14]. Based on empirical results, useful
frameworks facilitating the transition of PSS implementation
and operation have been provided [15, 16]. With regard to
activities that affect PSS transformation, the importance of co-
design [17], tailored pricing scheme [18], having continuous
feedback information [19], and appropriate operation
configuration [20] have been addressed. Human resource [21]
and facilities practices [22] were quite different from
manufacturing firms thus should be considered with care.
Among our 10 reviewed articles about ‘approaches
facilitating PSS design’ in product-oriented PSS, 60% focused
on early PSS stages. Some approaches were from lifecycle
perspective to enhance the designers’ awareness of the value
contribution in PSS preliminary design [23], help designers to
know how to adapt their future products used in PSS in a more
beneficial way [24], and elicit and assess the customer’
requirements under vagueness in the early development PSS
[25]. For sustainable PSS, the approach making the initial
stage of searching for opportunities more productive and
guided proved to be effective [26]. To increase the quality of
early design decisions, web 2.0 tools can help to overcome
knowledge sharing barriers between complex and cross-
functional design teams [27], and an Internet of Things (IoT)
enabled PSS adoption method could identify what should be
monitored in the product in the early phase and assist the
company in deciding which PSS strategy to be followed [28].
Approaches were also introduced to facilitate other PSS
design stages. From strategy, tactic and support level, an
integrative innovation management framework could ensure
each stakeholder’s knowledge and expertise be shared among
the network to lower the innovation cost and facilitate PSS
design [29]. A Service Engineering Methodology can identify
possible PSS solutions, as well as address the complexity of
the performance of the service delivery of PSS offerings [30].
A mathematical PSS maintenance strategy model using multi-
attribute utility theory enabled firms to achieve optimal
efficiency in management model transformations [31]. A
hybrid fuzzy methodology could evaluate the uncertainty of
transitions from product-focused operations towards service-
oriented operations and aid decision making [32].
A variety of ‘PSS design approaches’ addressing different
aspects have been proposed. For instance, a Product-Service
(PS) offerings classification model integrating business and
green offerings could enable better design or re-design of PS
business models, especially during the creation of PS
offering’s portfolio [33], a service network design approach
provided guidance for organizations to redesign dispersed
networks for integrated PS delivery [34], a three-phase model
collaborating research and stakeholder integration into PSS
development contributed to knowledge about how to design,
research and develop PSS, especially considering socio-
ecological sustainability [35], and a product, service and
organization framework could guide to create value for even
more complex PSS design [36]. In addition to design method,
marketing-oriented method was integrated as well to get
feasible PSS solutions [37].
With regard to ‘PSS function’, PSS concept can be
extended to create a new business model to transform, elevate,
and revitalize traditional manufacturing industry so that
manufacturers were more specialized in producing products
and components while sharing and outsourcing
manufacturing-oriented services from a service provider [38].
Providing a better analysis of the key criteria in measuring
business performance, PSS concept can also be used to
achieve customer satisfaction [39].
The ‘PSS evaluation’ models proposed to evaluate then
compare the value of various potential PSS offerings had
different focuses, e.g. focusing on customer value [40], on
both customer and organization value [41], and on the value
comparison with traditional business concept [42]. Only for
evaluation, a maturity model was used to evaluate the maturity
of new service development processes [43].
Under ‘PSS status quo’, in terms of model application,
different function models proposed in the literature were
interlinked insufficiently in mechatronic manufacturing firms
[44]. However, a correct approach in the new PSS
development process definition and the application of some
tools of the existing methods were found to contribute to PSS
for oil and gas equipment manufacturers [45]. In terms of
value attributes, PSS companies in different regions had
different value attributes [46].
3.2.Empirical use-oriented PSS studies
Empirical studies in use-oriented PSS were related to PSS
design approaches (4 papers, about 33%), PSS status quo (3
papers), PSS evaluation (2 papers), PSS impact (2 papers), and
approaches facilitating PSS design (1 paper).
Four PSS design approaches were introduced. A
knowledge-based PSS design method could support the
designers’ creation of design solutions by integrating
knowledge accumulated in a knowledge base [47]. A four-step
practical engineering method could enable effective human
resources allocation in the PSS design process [48]. A product
service supply chains (PSSC) model integrated the PSSC with
multiple service concepts in a single service system to manage
and coordinate PSSC [49]. Taking lifecycle into account, a
multi-objective mathematical model could simultaneously
optimize service decisions and end of life options by
considering their environmental and economic impacts [50].
Under ‘PSS status quo’ considering PSS acceptance, bike
sharing systems in China were widely accepted by commuters,
urban dwellers and played multiple roles [51]. However, rental
consumption, another type of use-oriented PSS, was not
widely accepted by Taiwanese consumers because they were
worried about situations related to the change of ownership
[52]. Considering the value propositions in PSS, both tangible
products and intangible activities were equally important in
402 Yan Xin et al. / Procedia CIRP 64 ( 2017 ) 399 – 404
terms of how resources were optimally configured to co-create
value with the customer [53].
Both PSS evaluation and impact for use-oriented PSS were
related to carsharing systems. Evaluation model linking static
impact-measurements to dynamic adaptation processes could
better assess the sustainability impacts of carsharing systems
to support policymakers enacting carsharing regulations in
cities [54]. Another model considered both service providers
and customers’ perspectives to evaluate the feasibility of
designing a carsharing system [55]. The launching of
carsharing systems reduced total number of cars in the city,
which constituted a potential for environmental gains [56, 57].
Under ‘approaches facilitating PSS design’, a customer
satisfaction estimation method could enable designers to
compare design solutions from the customers’ viewpoint in
the conceptual stage and therefore support iterative
improvements of PSS design [58].
3.3.Empirical result-oriented PSS studies
The 16 empirical studies in result-oriented PSS were
related to approaches facilitating PSS design (6 papers, about
38%), PSS design approaches (3 papers), PSS transformation
drivers (3 papers), PSS function (2 papers), PSS evaluation (1
paper), and PSS status quo (1 paper).
Similar to product-oriented PSS, the approaches facilitating
result-oriented PSS design also focused on early stages, i.e.
specifying requirements for PSS to understand the
interdisciplinary contexts to overcome the identified problems
[59], pointing out the complexity of each potential new PSS
idea and where to focus in the process [60], and focusing on
the consumption side to guide the analysis of the practices
elements, its configurations and how practices interlocked
with one another [61]. Focusing on performance prediction, a
simulation-based software tool could be used to compare the
performance of different design options [62]. Considering
inter-relationships, an assessment model could evaluate the
interrelationships among time, quality, cost, stability and
reliability of the service, and make a PSS platform more
practical [63]. Taking sustainability in mind, a scheduling
model could improve system response and robustness [64].
Two PSS design approaches were introduced to address co-
development. An extended Kansei engineering method
considered customer experience understanding and
incorporation [65], whereas a Solution Oriented Partnership
methodology took sustainability into account [66]. Another
model even considered the emotional side to help designers
create positive ‘emotional chain reactions’ for users [67].
With regard to PSS transformation drivers, to deliver
performance-based industrial service contracts successfully,
the key contributors related to provider, joint operation,
sacrifice, and configuration for contract incentives and
performance indicators were identified [68]. Considering
policy, ‘demand pull’ national government policies could
support PSS activity [69]. From risk management’s view,
matching different risks with appropriate options could guide
the choice of the right strategies in different situations [70].
Under ‘PSS function’, applying PSS concept, design
considerations and service requirements could be incorporated
into the telehealth smartphone applications to change the
traditional healthcare delivery model [71]. Extending the
application of PSS concept to the development of
synergistically sustainable community could open up the
potential of PSS and co-produced services in sustainability
improvement [72].
‘PSS evaluation’ taking lifecycle assessment into account
to present a sustainability-oriented value assessment model
that could provide comprehensive and consistent value
assessment under different product-service design scenarios
for design improvement, as well as for product-service plan
comparison and selection [73].
In terms of PSS status quo, although the supplier
relationships in ‘performance-based contracting’ were closer
and longer term, the provider–sub–supplier relationships were
not fully cooperative, which challenged the provider [74].
3.4.Other empirical PSS studies
Four studies in our study considered more than one
category of PSS in a single research. Among them, two studies
focused on PSS impact. From economic point of view,
servitized firms generated higher revenues but lower % net
profit compared to pure manufacturing firms [75]. From
environmental and economic point of view, design, recycling,
remanufacturing, reuse, maintenance, and holistic planning
and operation in the integrated product service offering
contributed to environmental and economic advantages [76].
One article focused on PSS transformation, which indicated
that consumers’ values could influence the acceptance,
adoption and diffusion of collaborative consumption [77]. The
remaining one focused on PSS status quo. It was found that
although quality management became increasingly important
for PSS, quality management practices were insufficient [78].
Two studies in our review were specified by their authors
as service-oriented PSS, and both of them focused on PSS
design approach. One studied provided a 4-stage service-
oriented PSS development process which could guide service
providers to develop PSS [79]. The other study proposed an
ontology-based knowledge representation model which could
develop web-based PSS through the reuse of knowledge
unambiguously in maintenance, repair and overhaul services
within the product lifecycle [80].
4.Conclusion
This paper presents a systematic review of empirical PSS
studies published in peer-reviewed journals between 2006 and
2016. Originated in Europe, PSS practice have been widely
applied across various geographical and research areas with an
increasing trend. In particular, about two thirds of the existing
empirical studies were written by authors affiliated in Europe,
indicating a leading position of Europe in this topic. The
majority of empirical research employed qualitative research
method while large scale quantitative studies are still scarce.
In addition, a large portion of product-oriented PSS studies
demonstrate that PSS is still in its early development stage in
terms of evolution.
403 Yan Xin et al. / Procedia CIRP 64 ( 2017 ) 399 – 404
Seven themes have been identified based on the aims and
focuses of the papers. Among them, PSS design related
studies capture the largest portion. Especially, more than half
of the approaches proposed to facilitate PSS address the early
development phases.
Based on the review findings, some considerations can be
proposed for future empirical research. Firstly, findings from
the empirical studies are often related to a single case study
based on the insights of a limited number of key persons. To
refine, validate and generalize the practical findings, more
quantitative research will definitely be necessary. Secondly,
being a complex system, PSS research should take the entire
system into account. However, none of the existing empirical
studies in our review had done this. Rather, the studies were
conducted based on a project, a transformation process, a firm,
or the PSS provider and its partners and suppliers at most.
Therefore, unit of analysis selection in the future research
turns to be pretty important. For instance, the entire supply
chain might be a possible solution. Thirdly, a key factor for
PSS design is the lifecycle perspective [81]. However, only 5
articles in our review took this point. In addition, none of them
considered both customer and solution provider’s points of
view. Therefore, a complete detailed PSS design approach that
not also considering both customer and solution provider’s
point of view, but also integrating the product and service
components along the whole lifecycle should be more
emphasized in the future. Lastly, only journal articles are
included in our review. However, studies from other sources
are important as well, and some of them are even more timely
(such as conference proceedings). Therefore, a more
comprehensive literature review including a large variety of
sources would help to get more new insights.
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Publication II
Xin, Y. and Ojanen, V.
The impact of digitalization on product lifecycle management: How to deal with it?
Reprinted with permission from
Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Industrial Engineering and
Engineering Management (IEEM)
10-13 December 2017, Singapore
© 2017, IEEE
Abstract - This paper aims to create a comprehensive
understanding on the impact of digitalization on product
lifecycle management, and provide suggestions for
manufacturing companies to achieve competitiveness in the
digital age. Based on an analysis of 35 journal articles and
conference papers, it was found that digitalization closes the
product information loop and extends the traditional PLM
to the whole product lifecycle, which makes Closed Loop
Lifecycle Management possible. To achieve competitiveness,
actions related to partnership, standardized and industry-
wide accepted data, security, and people should be
considered by the manufacturing companies.
Keywords - digitalization, product lifecycle management
(PLM), product lifecycle (PLC)
I. INTRODUCTION
Digitalization is one of the most significant on-going
transformations of contemporary society and the most
significant technological trend faced globally [1]. It has
impacted every aspect of organizational and social
activities profoundly [2]. To gain competitive advantage
in the digital business ecosystem with growing
complexity, manufacturing companies are required to
offer product-related services in addition to selling
tangible products throughout the product lifecycle (PLC)
[3]. At the same time, the complexity of the products and
their environments are increasing as well, which leads to a
necessity to use digital means to model the product with
multi-discipline teams distributed in different companies
throughout the PLC [4]. Integrating internal and external
data of the company, digitalization enables a better real
time view on operation and results, and improves business
process efficiency, quality, and consistency [5].
As a strategic weapon, product lifecycle management
(PLM) enables companies to provide additional values to
customers to gain competitive advantage [6]. By
managing product data generated throughout the PLC,
PLM makes the business processes more efficient,
flexible and effective [7]. It enables a company to reduce
product-related costs and improve product quality [8, 9],
and it increases customer satisfaction directly and
increases market share indirectly by shortening the time-
to-market and providing more complex product [10, 11].
With digitalization, what have been and will be
changed for PLM? Will these changes make PLM easier
or more difficult? How can manufacturing companies be
well prepared for such changes? These are the target
questions for this study. To answer these questions, an in-
depth literature review was conducted, and some
suggestions were provided.
In section 2, we will clarify the definitions used in
this study. The search strategy and brief descriptive
results will be described in section 3. Section 4 will
present the detailed review results, and section 5 will be
concluded by some suggestions for manufacturing
companies.
II. DEFINITIONS
Different definitions of digitalization and PLM can be
found in literature. To make it clear and consistent, the
definitions we used are presented in this section.
Digitalization is an on-going process and an open
concept that has not been fully defined [12]. In the
production mode, digitalization can be defined as
designing products in a digital form, composing and
exercising components virtually before really producing
the product, and maintaining the relationship between
product, users, and the producing company [13]. More
focusing on business, Gartner defines digitalization as
“the use of digital technologies to change a business
model and provide new revenue and value-producing
opportunities” [14]. In general, digitalization concerns the
changes that digital technologies can bring about in a
company’s business model, products, processes and
organizational structure [15], which is the concept we
adopted in this article as it matched with our research
context well.
Although different interpretations of PLM can be
found in the literature, the ideas implied are the same, i.e.
to manage product efficiently through all phases of its
lifecycle [16, 17, 18]. In this study, PLM is a business
strategy used by manufacturers to support the full PLC
and accelerate business performance through a
combination of process, organization, methodology, and
technology [8]. It is an integrated approach of managing
the product-related information along the entire PLC that
includes people, processes/practices and technology [17,
19].
Following an easy-to-use model, this study categories
PLC into three mains phases, i.e. beginning-of-life
(BOL), middle-of-life (MOL), and end-of-life (EOL) [16,
17, 20, 21]. BOL includes design and manufacturing to
generate the product concept and physically realize the
product. The product is within the manufacturing firm’s
The Impact of Digitalization on Product Lifecycle Management: How to Deal
with it?
Y. Xin, V. Ojanen
School of Business and Management, Lappeenranta University of Technology, Lappeenranta, Finland
(yan.xin@lut.fi, ville.ojanen@lut.fi )
978-1-5386-0948-4/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE 1098
boundaries during this phase. MOL includes distribution
(external logistic), use and support (repair and
maintenance). The product is in the hands of the final
customer during this phase. EOL takes account of reuse,
recycling, remanufacturing, and disposal. It starts when
the product cannot satisfy its users.
III. SEARCH STRATEGY
Considering the objective of the study, we limited the
language to English and the search strings to
‘digitalization’, ‘digit*’, ‘lifecycle’, ‘life cycle’, ‘IoT’,
and ‘information technology’ to identify journal articles
and conference papers published between 1990 and 2017
using online database Scopus. The initial 281 articles
were then filtered on the basis of the relevance of the titles
and abstracts, and reduced to 28 articles. As we focus on
digitalization and PLM in manufacturing companies and
treat PLM as a strategy rather than a software package,
those articles that did not meet the requirements were not
included. These 28 articles were downloaded and
analyzed in terms of the research objectives and findings.
To complement these articles, the relevant citations in
these articles were downloaded and analyzed as well,
which added 7 more articles. As no relevant articles were
found before 1999, the main body of this systematic
review comprises 35 peer-reviewed journal articles and
conference papers published from 1999 to 2017.
The majority of the papers were published since 2010
or later, which accounts for about 71% of all the related
papers. In particular, 11 papers were published from 2015
to 2017, which accounts for 31% of all the papers. This is
in line with the increasing propagation of digitalization
since 2014.
IV. RESULTS
Within a closed silo of information management,
PLM traditionally focuses on collecting the physical
product data [22], and product manufacturers are
responsible for the BOL phase in PLM [16]. As such,
product information content and flow during MOL and
EOL phases is largely incoherent and incomplete. This
information gap in the PLC limits the manufacturer’s
capacity to provide holistic products and services [7].
However, the application of information technology
could greatly reduce the difficulty of PLM [23]. By
tracking the products through its PLC and linking the
products to their manufacturer, the radio frequency
identification (RFID) technology and Internet of Things
(IoT) close product’s information loop, as a result the
accurate, real-time, and complete product information can
be available throughout the whole PLC [21, 24]. As
products are equipped with sensors and connectivity, it is
possible and even convenient for the manufacturers to
collect product data in the MOL and EOL phases and use
such data to improve the product in the future [4]. With
the IoT technology, all the things along PLC can be
equipped with embedded intelligent devices, such as the
raw material, component, machine, product and facilities.
By doing so, energy parameters connected to the
manufacturing process or in-service stage can be acquired
in real time, the critical information about the usage and
condition of an individual item can be collected, and the
detection and take-back of the end-of-use products are
facilitated [25]. Now with the cloud-based system,
designers can perform 2-D and 3-D modeling, and even
collaborative design remotely via a web browser or a
mobile device [26].
By closing the product's information loop,
digitalization makes Closed Loop Lifecycle Management
(CL2M) possible [27, 28, 29]. CL2M addresses the
collection of entire PLC information as it can help to
improve design, manufacturing, use and EOL handling of
products continually [27, 28, 29]. As a result of this,
product quality can be improved, and the business
opportunities will be enhanced [28]. Closed-loop PLM
contributes to the modernization of industry by improving
the product information quality and ease of access to
information at all PLC phases [7]. Consequently,
operations of MOL and EOL can be streamlined by using
the product design and production related information in
BOL. The BOL decisions made by designers and
engineers will be better with the help of the more easily
provided MOL and EOL information [7]. In a word, a
CL2M allows all the actors playing a role during PLC to
track, manage and control product information at any
phase of its lifecycle at any time and at any place [30].
In each phase of PLC, the PLM objectives are
different [22]. The BOL phase targets at improving the
product design and production quality, whereas the MOL
phase concerns the reliability, availability and
maintainability improvement of products. As such, the
impact of digitalization on PLM in different PLC phases
should be different. Consequently, we investigate the
impact of digitalization on PLM in BOL, MOL, and EOL,
respectively.
A. The Impact of Digitalization in the BOL Phase
BOL includes design and manufacturing, with
different focus. Product design focuses on finding
solutions for given problems, whereas manufacturing
focuses on concretizing a decision taken by others [7].
From the PLM’s perspective, the manufacturing process
can be monitored and measured in real time, the reasons
for complicated quality problems can be found before
they turned into issues, and the maintenance activities can
be supported with the help of digitalization in BOL [5].
The impacts can be described in detail as follow.
Firstly, digitalization enhances products and process
development [9, 31]. Sensor technologies can provide
real-time status information of the product to improve the
manufacturing process [32]. Through virtual factory, a
company can monitor and control the manufacturing
process in real time, and prepare for risks [5]. With virtual
prototyping, system planners can respond to the changes
1099
Proceedings of the 2017 IEEE IEEM
in manufacturing process quickly, improve the flexibility
and efficiency of tooling and process design recursively,
and consider human-machine interaction with regards to
usability, comfort, and safety in BOL phase [31]. With 3-
D simulation tying all the way to the actual physical
resources in the factory, the designers can design with the
knowledge and context of the manufacturing processes
and the currently available resources, thereby generate
fast and precise modeling of product development
processes [9].
Secondly, digitalization helps to reduce the product
time to market [10]. Product design is crucial as 85% of
the defects arising during manufacturing are related to the
decision-making in design phase [10]. Using an
information system in a digital factory, unexpected
problems taking place during PLC upstream phases can
be avoided, and therefore save time in the product design
project, and finally reduce the product time to market
[10]. Utilizing a tangible/graphical user interface (GUI)
and augmented reality (AR) in EOL, the number of paper
drawings needed can be reduced and the phase of design
revision can be speed up, therefore realizing ‘concurrent
engineering’ and shortening the time to market [33].
And thirdly, digitalization can support better energy
management in BOL phase [25]. With IoT, better energy
management can be achieved through optimizing raw
material procurement, simulation and testing of product,
and setting the efficient working way of manufacturing
equipment in design phase. In production phase, this can
be achieved though better monitoring and controlling the
production processes. For instance, test data is generated
by automatic equipment during the PLC, then
technologists or designers can make decisions from
analyzing correlation of test data connected with different
kinds of influence factors and choose the most energy-
efficient product design [25].
B. The Impact of Digitalization in the MOL Phase
From the product development’s viewpoint,
researches mostly focus on the BOL phase, and the
information for the MOL phase such as distribution, use
and support are incomplete [34]. Due to the requirements
to optimize the through-life cost or increase the
availability of high value or long life products,
manufacturers are expected to not only guarantee product
performance over the contracted period, but also provide
the maintenance service [35], which makes PLM in the
MOL phase to be much more important.
Traditionally, the owner of products changed from
manufacturer to customers when the products are
transported from the factory and delivered to customers.
When the machines or equipment are used by the end
users in their premises, it is difficult to collect and analyze
the relevant data [5]. Thus it is difficult for the
manufacturer to improve product and optimize operation
by using product usage data, and it is also difficult for the
customers to master the product with high efficiency [25].
With the help of digitalization, technically it is feasible to
connect products to the internet and assign them an IP
address, so that they can communicate and interact with
each other, with other components, and even with remote
controllers [36]. Therefore, it enables us to cope with the
limitation through efficient transport planning, optimized
warehouse management, comprehensive customers’
energy use guide, and predictive and preventive
maintenance [25, 37].
The impact of digitalization on PLM in the MOL
phase can also be reflected from the through-life cost
reduction. One of the most prominent benefits of
digitalization is to make preventive maintenance possible,
which can be scheduled to reduce the risk of unplanned
failures, reduce the inventory level for spare parts, and
even minimize the inventory cost by planning the
availability of spare parts across a geographic location
[35].
Using Intelligent Product refrigerator as an example,
it was demonstrated that digitalization could enable
energy efficiency and proactive maintenance during MOL
phase [32]. Abnormal conditions affecting the energy
efficiency can be detected in near real-time thus can be
corrected timely, and the need for instance spare parts can
be known with the help of remote monitoring thus can be
prepared without delay. More importantly, the spare parts
needed and the fix time required can be determined in
advance to avoid potentially repetitive visits [32].
C. The Impact of Digitalization in the EOL Phase
Due to the rapidly depleted natural resources and the
unintended environmental consequences and social
problems brought by manufacturing industries, now
appropriate strategies have to be considered and
developed to deal with the end-of-use products [38],
which is exactly what PLM in the EOL phase deals with,
i.e. reuse, recycling, remanufacturing, and disposal.
Currently, the primary focuses of PLM are BOL and
MOL phases, with little emphasize on the EOL phase. In
order to make PLM a close loop and reduce the negative
impacts of the end-of-use products on environment and
human, the EOL phase has to be addressed [7].
Moving from BOL to MOL and EOL along the entire
PLC, the product information flow becomes less and less
complete, which leads to complicated decision-making
processes in EOL [21]. However, the real-time PLC data
of each individual item can be traced, detected, stored,
and analyzed with the help of digitalization, in particular
IoT [38]. Thus, the critical information related to the end-
of-use products, especially the quality and remaining
value of those products can be predicted and estimated,
the uncertainty in the status of those products can be
mitigated or eliminated, and therefore the resource-saving
recycling activities can be enhanced [21, 24, 32, 38].
Using a RFID based disassembly decision-making
system as an example, the impact of digitalization on
PLM in the EOL phase can be clearly presented [39]. At
present, when recycling companies receive the products, it
is hard for them to obtain accurate PLC information.
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Using such a system, the lifecycle information can be kept
up-to-date to guarantee recycling firms get accurate and
timely lifecycle information under any circumstances,
thereby the decision-making cost can be reduced, and the
accuracy and efficiency of decision-making can be
increased. Consequently, the recovery efficiency can be
improved, environmental pollution can be minimized, and
recovery profits can be maximized.
V. CONCLUDING SUGGESTIONS
The impact of digitalization on PLM is on-going, and
the manufacturing companies have to take some actions to
make themselves competitive in the digital age. Based on
the impact, some suggestions for the manufacturing
companies are discussed below.
A. Partnership
Currently, many actors interacting with the product
during MOL and EOL phases only perform their
respective activities, with little information exchange with
other actors [7]. However, digitalization promotes holistic
information exchange among different parties including
designers, manufacturers, customers and recoverers,
which will involve more interactions among them [7]. In
such emerging complex networked organizations,
interchanging, sharing, and managing internal and
external resources will be more challenging, and
establishing partnerships with other companies who
specialized in complementary domains turns to be
essential [3]. For instance, when IT and data are becoming
an integral part of the product, teaming up with software
companies or partners who are expertized in equipping
products with sensor technology and connectivity will be
very valuable to the manufacturers [4]. Therefore, a
stronger partnership between all of these parties will be
essential in the future [35].
B. Standardized and industry-wide accepted data
PLM requires efficient handling of an enormous
amount of data [33]. Throughout the different phases of
PLC, products are disposed not only within the
manufacturing firm, but also in a distributed, mobile, and
collaborative environment beyond the firm’s boundaries
[34]. In addition, along with digitalization, the complexity
of products, processes, value creation networks and IT
environments are growing increasingly, the volume of
data is turning to be extremely huge, and the forms of data
are developing to be incredibly various, which make
managing all that information even more difficult [24,
40]. From the PLM software providers’ point of view,
providing an information platform covering entire PLC
with a flexible and configurable pattern to support unified
management of distributed and heterogeneous product
data turns to be crucial [34]. From the manufacturing
firms’ point of view, it is very important to provide
standardized and industry-wide accepted PLM data
models to support the interlinked data analysis, and to
model links between data from different domains [40].
C. Security
With digitalization, manufacturing firms and the
relevant parties will be increasingly interconnected in
both the cyberspace and the physical world. The security
issues such as confidentiality, integrity, and availability of
data through the PLC have to be addressed since the data
can be attacked by not only hackers, but also competitors
[26, 41, 42]. The whole new product design can be stolen
by the competitors only because of a small stolen part of
data [24]. Therefore, it is very important for the firms to
guarantee that only the authorized parties can access the
data when needed and in an appropriate manner.
D. People
No matter how advanced the technology and PLM
are, people are always indispensable as the processes are
managed, controlled, implemented and realized by human
beings [7]. Because of digitalization, the requirement for
people with complexity, abstraction, and problem-solving
skills will increase, and the need for people with
multidiscipline knowledge will surge as well [36]. To be
prepared for this, providing special training could
therefore be an option for the companies.
In the future, PLM is expected to ensure a less
resource intensive society through enabling improved
traceability of product and in logistics, improvement in
material recycling, and optimization of resources usage
throughout the PLC [7]. Manufacturing companies should
take actions on the suggested areas and be well prepared
for this.
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Publication III
Xin, Y., Ojanen, V., and Huiskonen, J.
Knowledge management in product-service systems - A product lifecycle perspective
Reprinted with permission from
Procedia CIRP
Vol. 73, pp. 203-209, 2018
© 2018, Elsevier
ScienceDirect
Available online at www.sciencedirect.comAvailable online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect
Procedia CIRP 00 (2017) 000–000
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia
2212-8271 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 28th CIRP Design Conference 2018.
28th CIRP Design Conference, May 2018, Nantes, France
A new methodology to analyze the functional and physical architecture of
existing products for an assembly oriented product family identification
Paul Stief *, Jean-Yves Dantan, Alain Etienne, Ali Siadat
École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et Métiers, Arts et Métiers ParisTech, LCFC EA 4495, 4 Rue Augustin Fresnel, Metz 57078, France
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 3 87 37 54 30; E-mail address: paul.stief@ensam.eu
Abstract
In today’s business environment, the trend towards more product variety and customization is unbroken. Due to this development, the need of
agile and reconfigurable production systems emerged to cope with various products and product families. To design and optimize production
systems as well as to choose the optimal product matches, product analysis methods are needed. Indeed, most of the known methods aim to
analyze a product or one product family on the physical level. Different product families, however, may differ largely in terms of the number and
nature of components. This fact impedes an efficient comparison and choice of appropriate product family combinations for the production
system. A new methodology is proposed to analyze existing products in view of their functional and physical architecture. The aim is to cluster
these products in new assembly oriented product families for the optimization of existing assembly lines and the creation of future reconfigurable
assembly systems. Based on Datum Flow Chain, the physical structure of the products is analyzed. Functional subassemblies are identified, and
a functional analysis is performed. Moreover, a hybrid functional and physical architecture graph (HyFPAG) is the output which depicts the
similarity between product families by providing design support to both, production system planners and product designers. An illustrative
example of a nail-clipper is used to explain the proposed methodology. An industrial case study on two product families of steering columns of
thyssenkrupp Presta France is then carried out to give a first industrial evaluation of the proposed approach.
© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 28th CIRP Design Conference 2018.
Keywords: Assembly; Design method; Family identification
1. Introduction
Due to the fast development in the domain of
communication and an ongoing trend of digitization and
digitalization, manufacturing enterprises are facing important
challenges in today’s market environments: a continuing
tendency towards reduction of product development times and
shortened product lifecycles. In addition, there is an increasing
demand of customization, being at the same time in a global
competition with competitors all over the world. This trend,
which is inducing the development from macro to micro
markets, results in diminished lot sizes due to augmenting
product varieties (high-volume to low-volume production) [1].
To cope with this augmenting variety as well as to be able to
identify possible optimization potentials in the existing
production system, it is important to have a precise knowledge
of the product range and characteristics manufactured and/or
assembled in this system. In this context, the main challenge in
modelling and analysis is now not only to cope with single
products, a limited product range or existing product families,
but also to be able to analyze and to compare products to define
new product families. It can be observed that classical existing
product families are regrouped in function of clients or features.
However, assembly oriented product families are hardly to find.
On the product family level, products differ mainly in two
main characteristics: (i) the number of components and (ii) the
type of components (e.g. mechanical, electrical, electronical).
Classical methodologies considering mainly single products
or solitary, already existing product families analyze the
product structure on a physical level (components level) which
causes difficulties regarding an efficient definition and
comparison of different product families. Addressing this
Procedia CIRP 73 (2018) 203–209
2212-8271 © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 10th CIRP Conference on Industrial Product-Service Systems.
10.1016/j.procir.2018.03.306
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Sci nceDirect
Procedia CIRP 00 (2018) 000–000
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia
2212-8271 © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 10th CIRP Conference on Industrial Product-Service Systems.
10th CIRP Conference on Industrial Product-Service Systems, IPS2 2018, 29-31 May 2018, Linköping,
Sweden
Knowledge Management in Product-Service Systems – A Product Lifecycle
Perspective
Yan Xin*, Ville Ojanen, Janne Huiskonen
Lappeenranta University of Technology, Skinnarilankatu 34, 53850 Lappeenranta, Finland
* Tel.: +358 29 44 64040; E-mail address: yan.xin@lut.fi
Abstract
The current paper aims to investigate the knowledge management practice in PSS based on literature, and presents propositions for both academia
and practitioners from the perspective of product lifecycle. In particular, we look at knowledge requirement, knowledge reuse, and knowledge
sharing throughout the entire product lifecycle. Our findings suggest that more appropriate knowledge representation manners and standard
knowledge representation form, the identification and classification of the most important knowledge for different stakeholders, and balanced
application of personalization and codification strategy will be very important for companies in PSS domain to manage knowledge. Trigging by
the increasing concern of sustainability in PSS context, we propose a product lifecycle model integrated raw materials extraction and material
production, therefore making a more integral close information loop in PSS.
© 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 10th CIRP Conference on Industrial Product-Service Systems.
Keywords: Product-service systems; Knowledge management; Product lifecycle
1. Introduction
Currently, sustainability is among the key issues for the
society. In moving the society towards sustainability, Product-
service systems (PSS) are among the most potent implements
[1]. One commonly accepted definition of PSS is an ‘integrated
bundle of products and services which aims at creating
customer utility and generating value’ [2]. In general, it can be
categorized into three types as product-oriented, use-oriented,
and result-oriented PSS [3]. Under the on-going transformation
to digitalization, the rapid advancement of information
technology (IT) enables a company to approach the real-time
information of the product over the entire product lifecycle
(PLC) accurately and completely [4], therefore reduce the
difficulty of product lifecycle management (PLM) [5].
Following an easy-to-use model, the current study
categorizes PLC into three main phases including beginning-
of-life (BOL), middle-of-life (MOL), and end-of-life (EOL)
[6,7]. Design and manufacturing are included in BOL phase to
generate the product concept and physically realize the product.
The product is within the manufacturing firm’s boundaries
during this phase. Distribution (external logistic), use, and
support (repair and maintenance) constitute MOL phase. The
product is in the final customer’s hands during this phase. EOL
phase takes account of reuse, recycling, remanufacturing, and
disposal. It starts when the product cannot satisfy the needs of
its users (not matter they are the initial purchasers, or the
second-hand owners of the products). Focusing on
manufacturing firms, only PLC will be discussed in this study.
Although service lifecycle as such will not be covered, we will
define the product lifecycle relatively broadly, and the relevant
integrated services have been included, for instance the use,
repair, and maintenance of the product in MOL phase.
Knowledge generated in different PLC phases are very
important for the entire PLC. The BOL engineering knowledge
can not only be applied by manufacturing companies to various
customer applications, but also help to improve their MOL
services such as maintenance and repair [8]. The MOL
information is a vital source for designers in BOL phase [9],
especially the knowledge concerning component failure,
204 Yan Xin et al. / Procedia CIRP 73 (2018) 203–209
2 Xin, Ojanen, and Huiskonen / Procedia CIRP 00 (2018) 000–000
operating conditions, maintenance, and reliability [10]. For
instance, the service experience from the previous similar
products is very important for both current product
improvement and future products development as product flaws
can be systematically corrected [11,12], and this is especially
true in PSS scenario [13,14]. The MOL knowledge will also be
beneficial for the MOL phase itself as it can enhance the quality
of the provided service, and improve the consistency of the
service as well [15]. Moving towards environmental aspects,
the EOL knowledge will assist the Reduce and Redesign in the
next lifecycle [16]. Therefore manufacturers who collect the
EOL phase products, recover the products returned, and use
them as resources could to some extent reduce the unexploited
sourcing [17]. Because the product return flows are
characterized by the uncertainties related to timing, quantity,
and quality [18], dealing with product recycling is challenging
for manufacturers [17]. Available accurate EOL product
information definitely can facilitate the product recovery
decisions [19].
Knowledge management can be defined as ‘explicit
strategies, tools and practices, applied by the management that
seek to make knowledge a resource for the organization’ [20].
In general, knowledge management aims to capture and store
the past experience and information and reuse them to solve the
new problems, including both new product development and
enhancement of the existing products [21]. Knowledge range
required in PSS design is broader because not only products are
considered in the design space, but also service has to be taken
into account as an essential component, [22]. In the
sustainability oriented PSS scenario, the intensive use of
knowledge from multiple disciplines makes knowledge
management even more crucial and challenging than ever [13].
As a business strategy, product lifecycle management
(PLM) concerns various product stakeholders over the entire
PLC. As a technology solution, PLM enables knowledge
creation, transformation and sharing along the entire PLC by
establishing various tools and technologies. The combination of
the above two perspectives leads to treat PLM as a knowledge
management system to support different PLC phases [23].
Knowledge requirement and knowledge management practice
(such as knowledge reuse and knowledge sharing) in each PLC
phase will be different. In order to better manage knowledge in
such case, the focus on knowledge management in each phase
should be different as well. However, this had rarely been
concerned in detail in the existing literature, especially in PSS
context. Therefore, this study intends to investigate knowledge
management across the entire PLC phases to help the
stakeholders along the PLC phases reusing and sharing
knowledge better, and provide insights for academia on the
future directions for knowledge management in PSS. In
addition, trigging by the increasing concern of sustainability in
PSS context, a complete close-loop information flow is
necessary for all the stakeholders. In response to this, we
propose a product lifecycle model integrated raw materials
extraction and material production, consequently trying to
make the information loop in PSS more integral.
Search strategy will be described in section 2. Based on
literature review, propositions related to knowledge
requirement, knowledge reuse, and knowledge sharing
throughout the entire PLC phases will be developed in section
3 through 5. In section 6, a proposed new PLC model in PSS
context will be presented. Conclusion and future research plan
will be discussed in section 7.
2. Search strategy
In view of the objective of the study, we first used online
database Scopus to identify relevant journal articles and
conference papers published between 1990 to 2017 with the
search strings as ‘product-service system*’, ‘product service
system*’, ‘knowledge’, ‘knowledge management’, ‘lifecycle’,
and ‘life cycle’, and limited the language to English. However,
the searching results only provided limited number of relevant
articles. Focusing on PLC perspective, we revised the search
strategy. The entire PLC was divided into three phases as
mentioned previously, and several stages were included in each
phase. Based on this, we identified relevant articles in each
stages of PLC using search strings ‘knowledge’ and
‘knowledge management’. The initial 1164 articles were then
filtered on the basis of the relevance of the titles and abstracts,
and reduced to 58 articles. We downloaded and analyzed these
58 articles in terms of the research objectives and findings. The
earliest article in our final list was published in 1995, and only
three papers were published before 2000. Therefore, 58 peer-
reviewed journal articles and conference papers published from
1995 to 2017 were used in this study to formulate the
propositions. In particular, 21 of them were published in the
past 5 years, which account for about 36% of all the papers.
3. Knowledge requirement
The stakeholders in different PLC phases have different
requirements for knowledge. For instance, in the BOL phase,
the designer’s main objective is to find a set of technical
specifications to solve the problem through the analysis of
customer requirement [24], which implies both customer and
technical knowledge are needed by designers. In general, both
tacit and explicit knowledge are included in customer
knowledge, while explicit knowledge is the main body of
technical knowledge. At the same time, the entire PLC has to
be considered by the designers as an inseparable component of
the design process in new product design [25]. Furthermore,
they should also consider the policies/regulations in different
countries. For instance, in order to decrease the percentage of
disposing EOL mobile phones into landfills, a variety of
voluntary takeback schemes are existing in different countries
[26,27,28]. They have different characteristics, requirements,
and performance. Designers and manufactures should take this
in mind to design and produce the right products targeting at
different countries.
Although both designers and service staffs emphasized the
relevance of MOL knowledge (especially in-service
information), their focus were different. Process knowledge
and component-level knowledge of the equipment was the
former’s interest to improve the product development, while
knowledge about the systems’ overview was more emphasized
by the latter to provide more efficient support service [15].
Xin, Ojanen, and Huiskonen / Procedia CIRP 00 (2018) 000–000 3
In some industries, MOL knowledge turns to be especially
important because of the high maintenance cost [14]. For
instance, in the aerospace industry with prevailing leasing
model which is a classic use-oriented PSS case, in addition to
reliability and low fuel consumption, the most important design
objective for new product design (such as engine) turns to be
overall lifecycle costs reduction, especially to have low and
predictable maintenance costs. Therefore, their requirement of
knowledge will be more concentrated on the MOL phase of the
existing products to guarantee the engine health and minimize
the maintenance cost of the high-value components [8,29].
From the above discussion, it is clear that the required
knowledge in different PLC phases may be generated from the
same PLC phase, but focusing on different aspects. In addition,
companies with use-oriented PSS business model will require
more knowledge generated in MOL phase. Therefore, the
propositions related to the different knowledge requirements
are presented as follows:
P1a: Knowledge should be represented in appropriate
manners to meet the different requirements raised by the
stakeholders in different PLC phases.
P1b: Future research on PSS knowledge requirement
should focus on identifying and classifying the most important
knowledge required by companies with different PSS business
models.
4. Knowledge reuse
Knowledge reuse aims at retrieving previous knowledge and
experience and applying it in the right manner to solve the
current problem [30]. Analyzing similar projects from past
makes it possible to transform a new product or new project
into a re-engineering of an existing product partially [24].
Knowledge reuse is especially a normal practice for R&D
people to speed up the development process as most of the
product development projects are indeed incremental redesign
of existing products [31]. In the current PSS environment, the
collaborative design scenario makes it even more critical for a
company to reuse the knowledge from different product
lifecycle phases to support the product development and
achieve competitive advantage [8,15]. Along the PLC, a variety
of models/approaches have been developed/proposed to
facilitate knowledge reuse.
In BOL phase
Knowledge reuse models/approaches/frameworks for
different knowledge’s types have been proposed for BOL
phase. For instance, using historical process data during
production, a method was proposed for robust design
improvement by estimating the variance of a new product’s
performance early in BOL, especially in the design phase [32].
To encourage innovative design by novice designers, a
knowledge reuse framework based on a knowledge map with
extracted explicit design knowledge and implicit knowledge on
design case was proposed [33]. To support SMEs operating in
an engineer-to-order business model reusing their engineering
projects knowledge in design and planning phase, a knowledge
framework for advanced manufacturing was defined [34]. A
quantitative approach to capture service damage knowledge in
MOL phase and to make it available for designer and
manufacturer was proposed to encourage MOL knowledge
reuse [14]. Within a collaborative multidisciplinary aerospace
manufacturing environment, a method enabling the share and
reuse of machining knowledge to accelerate the process of
design-make was developed [35]. Integrating a semantic-based
visualized wiki system with a core visualized search module, a
framework to reuse the empirical lesson-learned knowledge in
product design was proposed [36], through which design
engineers can conveniently share their knowledge and reuse
others’ experience to shorten the problem-solving time.
Some models are related to knowledge
representation/codification in BOL phase. To improve in-
service knowledge reuse in product design and consequently
design more reliable and serviceable products, techniques for
codifying and classifying in-service records were developed
[37]. A multi-level knowledge representation model integrated
with a simulation tool was presented to facilitate knowledge
representation and management by integrating the knowledge
elements into a graph representation effectively, therefore
supporting collaborative work of distributed designers [30].
Knowledge reuse models related to knowledge linkage have
also been proposed. To meet the requirements of engineering
design in the design phase, a method facilitating design
knowledge reuse was reported by considering the interaction
between two types of models - design process and product data
[38]. To improve the reuse of knowledge in products’ digital
design process, an ontology-based knowledge management
method and reuse strategy was introduced to link structure and
design knowledge [39]. Linking design strategies with a
recycling process, a proposed solution makes it possible for the
designer to consider the materials behavior’s characterization,
and the limits, constraints and opportunities of recycling
process in a sustainability-oriented product design [40]. In
order to effectively and efficiently apply the product usage data
in the new PSS development or current PSS improvement, an
approach supporting the analysis of usage related data sets and
their linkage to product design parameters was proposed [41].
Sustainability and PLC have also been addressed in some
models. From a PLM perspective, a knowledge reuse
framework providing both manufacturing and service
knowledge to designers was developed to support product
development in PSS design scenario [8]. Focusing on concept
development in consumer package goods industry, an operative
knowledge management methodology integrating the Theory
of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) and Quality Function
Deployment (QFD) was developed to reuse previous solutions
and designs adopted in other products or fields with similar
situations in the PLM database, thereby reducing the design
and plant setup costs, and even helping to realize a packaging
design with completely recyclable materials [42]. Through
interviewing experts and conducting a case study in a heavy
construction machinery company, a proposed knowledge
management and reuse framework based on ontology enables
designers in PSS design to access the entire PLC knowledge
(especially usage and maintenance knowledge in MOL phase)
efficiently was approved, therefore improving the maintenance
service from design phase [13]. From the viewpoint of a PSS
provider, a framework was developed to use product in-service
Yan Xin et al. / Procedia CIRP 73 (2018) 203–209 205
2 Xin, Ojanen, and Huiskonen / Procedia CIRP 00 (2018) 000–000
operating conditions, maintenance, and reliability [10]. For
instance, the service experience from the previous similar
products is very important for both current product
improvement and future products development as product flaws
can be systematically corrected [11,12], and this is especially
true in PSS scenario [13,14]. The MOL knowledge will also be
beneficial for the MOL phase itself as it can enhance the quality
of the provided service, and improve the consistency of the
service as well [15]. Moving towards environmental aspects,
the EOL knowledge will assist the Reduce and Redesign in the
next lifecycle [16]. Therefore manufacturers who collect the
EOL phase products, recover the products returned, and use
them as resources could to some extent reduce the unexploited
sourcing [17]. Because the product return flows are
characterized by the uncertainties related to timing, quantity,
and quality [18], dealing with product recycling is challenging
for manufacturers [17]. Available accurate EOL product
information definitely can facilitate the product recovery
decisions [19].
Knowledge management can be defined as ‘explicit
strategies, tools and practices, applied by the management that
seek to make knowledge a resource for the organization’ [20].
In general, knowledge management aims to capture and store
the past experience and information and reuse them to solve the
new problems, including both new product development and
enhancement of the existing products [21]. Knowledge range
required in PSS design is broader because not only products are
considered in the design space, but also service has to be taken
into account as an essential component, [22]. In the
sustainability oriented PSS scenario, the intensive use of
knowledge from multiple disciplines makes knowledge
management even more crucial and challenging than ever [13].
As a business strategy, product lifecycle management
(PLM) concerns various product stakeholders over the entire
PLC. As a technology solution, PLM enables knowledge
creation, transformation and sharing along the entire PLC by
establishing various tools and technologies. The combination of
the above two perspectives leads to treat PLM as a knowledge
management system to support different PLC phases [23].
Knowledge requirement and knowledge management practice
(such as knowledge reuse and knowledge sharing) in each PLC
phase will be different. In order to better manage knowledge in
such case, the focus on knowledge management in each phase
should be different as well. However, this had rarely been
concerned in detail in the existing literature, especially in PSS
context. Therefore, this study intends to investigate knowledge
management across the entire PLC phases to help the
stakeholders along the PLC phases reusing and sharing
knowledge better, and provide insights for academia on the
future directions for knowledge management in PSS. In
addition, trigging by the increasing concern of sustainability in
PSS context, a complete close-loop information flow is
necessary for all the stakeholders. In response to this, we
propose a product lifecycle model integrated raw materials
extraction and material production, consequently trying to
make the information loop in PSS more integral.
Search strategy will be described in section 2. Based on
literature review, propositions related to knowledge
requirement, knowledge reuse, and knowledge sharing
throughout the entire PLC phases will be developed in section
3 through 5. In section 6, a proposed new PLC model in PSS
context will be presented. Conclusion and future research plan
will be discussed in section 7.
2. Search strategy
In view of the objective of the study, we first used online
database Scopus to identify relevant journal articles and
conference papers published between 1990 to 2017 with the
search strings as ‘product-service system*’, ‘product service
system*’, ‘knowledge’, ‘knowledge management’, ‘lifecycle’,
and ‘life cycle’, and limited the language to English. However,
the searching results only provided limited number of relevant
articles. Focusing on PLC perspective, we revised the search
strategy. The entire PLC was divided into three phases as
mentioned previously, and several stages were included in each
phase. Based on this, we identified relevant articles in each
stages of PLC using search strings ‘knowledge’ and
‘knowledge management’. The initial 1164 articles were then
filtered on the basis of the relevance of the titles and abstracts,
and reduced to 58 articles. We downloaded and analyzed these
58 articles in terms of the research objectives and findings. The
earliest article in our final list was published in 1995, and only
three papers were published before 2000. Therefore, 58 peer-
reviewed journal articles and conference papers published from
1995 to 2017 were used in this study to formulate the
propositions. In particular, 21 of them were published in the
past 5 years, which account for about 36% of all the papers.
3. Knowledge requirement
The stakeholders in different PLC phases have different
requirements for knowledge. For instance, in the BOL phase,
the designer’s main objective is to find a set of technical
specifications to solve the problem through the analysis of
customer requirement [24], which implies both customer and
technical knowledge are needed by designers. In general, both
tacit and explicit knowledge are included in customer
knowledge, while explicit knowledge is the main body of
technical knowledge. At the same time, the entire PLC has to
be considered by the designers as an inseparable component of
the design process in new product design [25]. Furthermore,
they should also consider the policies/regulations in different
countries. For instance, in order to decrease the percentage of
disposing EOL mobile phones into landfills, a variety of
voluntary takeback schemes are existing in different countries
[26,27,28]. They have different characteristics, requirements,
and performance. Designers and manufactures should take this
in mind to design and produce the right products targeting at
different countries.
Although both designers and service staffs emphasized the
relevance of MOL knowledge (especially in-service
information), their focus were different. Process knowledge
and component-level knowledge of the equipment was the
former’s interest to improve the product development, while
knowledge about the systems’ overview was more emphasized
by the latter to provide more efficient support service [15].
Xin, Ojanen, and Huiskonen / Procedia CIRP 00 (2018) 000–000 3
In some industries, MOL knowledge turns to be especially
important because of the high maintenance cost [14]. For
instance, in the aerospace industry with prevailing leasing
model which is a classic use-oriented PSS case, in addition to
reliability and low fuel consumption, the most important design
objective for new product design (such as engine) turns to be
overall lifecycle costs reduction, especially to have low and
predictable maintenance costs. Therefore, their requirement of
knowledge will be more concentrated on the MOL phase of the
existing products to guarantee the engine health and minimize
the maintenance cost of the high-value components [8,29].
From the above discussion, it is clear that the required
knowledge in different PLC phases may be generated from the
same PLC phase, but focusing on different aspects. In addition,
companies with use-oriented PSS business model will require
more knowledge generated in MOL phase. Therefore, the
propositions related to the different knowledge requirements
are presented as follows:
P1a: Knowledge should be represented in appropriate
manners to meet the different requirements raised by the
stakeholders in different PLC phases.
P1b: Future research on PSS knowledge requirement
should focus on identifying and classifying the most important
knowledge required by companies with different PSS business
models.
4. Knowledge reuse
Knowledge reuse aims at retrieving previous knowledge and
experience and applying it in the right manner to solve the
current problem [30]. Analyzing similar projects from past
makes it possible to transform a new product or new project
into a re-engineering of an existing product partially [24].
Knowledge reuse is especially a normal practice for R&D
people to speed up the development process as most of the
product development projects are indeed incremental redesign
of existing products [31]. In the current PSS environment, the
collaborative design scenario makes it even more critical for a
company to reuse the knowledge from different product
lifecycle phases to support the product development and
achieve competitive advantage [8,15]. Along the PLC, a variety
of models/approaches have been developed/proposed to
facilitate knowledge reuse.
In BOL phase
Knowledge reuse models/approaches/frameworks for
different knowledge’s types have been proposed for BOL
phase. For instance, using historical process data during
production, a method was proposed for robust design
improvement by estimating the variance of a new product’s
performance early in BOL, especially in the design phase [32].
To encourage innovative design by novice designers, a
knowledge reuse framework based on a knowledge map with
extracted explicit design knowledge and implicit knowledge on
design case was proposed [33]. To support SMEs operating in
an engineer-to-order business model reusing their engineering
projects knowledge in design and planning phase, a knowledge
framework for advanced manufacturing was defined [34]. A
quantitative approach to capture service damage knowledge in
MOL phase and to make it available for designer and
manufacturer was proposed to encourage MOL knowledge
reuse [14]. Within a collaborative multidisciplinary aerospace
manufacturing environment, a method enabling the share and
reuse of machining knowledge to accelerate the process of
design-make was developed [35]. Integrating a semantic-based
visualized wiki system with a core visualized search module, a
framework to reuse the empirical lesson-learned knowledge in
product design was proposed [36], through which design
engineers can conveniently share their knowledge and reuse
others’ experience to shorten the problem-solving time.
Some models are related to knowledge
representation/codification in BOL phase. To improve in-
service knowledge reuse in product design and consequently
design more reliable and serviceable products, techniques for
codifying and classifying in-service records were developed
[37]. A multi-level knowledge representation model integrated
with a simulation tool was presented to facilitate knowledge
representation and management by integrating the knowledge
elements into a graph representation effectively, therefore
supporting collaborative work of distributed designers [30].
Knowledge reuse models related to knowledge linkage have
also been proposed. To meet the requirements of engineering
design in the design phase, a method facilitating design
knowledge reuse was reported by considering the interaction
between two types of models - design process and product data
[38]. To improve the reuse of knowledge in products’ digital
design process, an ontology-based knowledge management
method and reuse strategy was introduced to link structure and
design knowledge [39]. Linking design strategies with a
recycling process, a proposed solution makes it possible for the
designer to consider the materials behavior’s characterization,
and the limits, constraints and opportunities of recycling
process in a sustainability-oriented product design [40]. In
order to effectively and efficiently apply the product usage data
in the new PSS development or current PSS improvement, an
approach supporting the analysis of usage related data sets and
their linkage to product design parameters was proposed [41].
Sustainability and PLC have also been addressed in some
models. From a PLM perspective, a knowledge reuse
framework providing both manufacturing and service
knowledge to designers was developed to support product
development in PSS design scenario [8]. Focusing on concept
development in consumer package goods industry, an operative
knowledge management methodology integrating the Theory
of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) and Quality Function
Deployment (QFD) was developed to reuse previous solutions
and designs adopted in other products or fields with similar
situations in the PLM database, thereby reducing the design
and plant setup costs, and even helping to realize a packaging
design with completely recyclable materials [42]. Through
interviewing experts and conducting a case study in a heavy
construction machinery company, a proposed knowledge
management and reuse framework based on ontology enables
designers in PSS design to access the entire PLC knowledge
(especially usage and maintenance knowledge in MOL phase)
efficiently was approved, therefore improving the maintenance
service from design phase [13]. From the viewpoint of a PSS
provider, a framework was developed to use product in-service
206 Yan Xin et al. / Procedia CIRP 73 (2018) 203–209
4 Xin, Ojanen, and Huiskonen / Procedia CIRP 00 (2018) 000–000
data adequately in the BOL phase to improve the through-life
product performance [43].
In MOL phase
There are only a few models aiming at knowledge reuse in
MOL phase, which have been proposed earlier. A proposed
model based on product characteristics during operation can be
used to predict products status in the future and enable a real-
time predictive maintenance [44]. In order to improve the
logistics performances, a knowledge management system
based on RFID was developed. Through such a system, the
logistics operators can get the right process knowledge at real
time [45]. Based on Bayesian inference, a maintenance
knowledge reuse framework was established to support
decision making of maintenance service [46].
In EOL phase
The knowledge reuse model proposed for EOL phase were
mostly related to environment concerns and from the recyclers’
perspective. Recycling and remanufacturing are integrated
components of sustainable manufacturing [47]. Using item-
level information that was generated through RFID tags, a
knowledge-based framework was proposed from a
recycling/remanufacturing perspective to consider quality
improvement issues relating to repair & refurbishment and
EOL recycling [47]. Using this framework, the process of
sorting and the following processes for recycling of EOL
products can be operated more accurately, therefore
minimizing the pollution that generated unnecessarily by mis-
operation [47]. Taking into account critical product parameters
and key performance indicators of business, a knowledge-
based framework was developed to support the recyclers’
decision making in EOL phase [48]. Mainly using MOL phase
information such as maintenance management and condition
monitoring, a framework was developed to support product life
extension decision in EOL phase, as it can determine the cost
and carbon footprint of life extension process [49].
Across different PLC phases
Product design knowledge, especially recycling-oriented
product characterization can link product design (BOL) and
recycling systems design (EOL). With such knowledge,
recyclers can analyze product characteristics to adapt their
recycling process. In addition, they can communicate with
manufactures to indicate the product characteristics with
positive or negative impact on recycling, thus provide
recommendations for product design improvement [50].
Tracking and managing product data through its entire PLC by
using RF tagging in component level, a RFID-based modular
lifecycle data management system was proposed, which can
help manufactures to achieve optimal product planning with
considering remanufactured components, and help recyclers to
choose the most appropriate recovery option by handling the
quality uncertainty problem [17]. In an ideal situation, iterative
feedback loop with some forms should exist between each PLC
phase, therefore the knowledge or lessons learned from the later
phases could be used to improve the decision making in the
early phases. As found in literature, the feedback loop within
BOL phase (i.e. between design and manufacturing) works
well, while the loop between MOL and BOL is less formal [43].
In a drilling equipment company who provided machineries for
the oil industry, a model facilitating the reuse of MOL
knowledge (service knowledge) across the entire PLC was
proposed [15].
The above literature summarized a variety of knowledge
reuse models/frameworks across the PLC phases. Some of
them are only targeted for one particular phase, while some of
them are focused on knowledge reuse across different PLC
phases. They are proposed from different perspectives, and
with different focus. For instance, most of the knowledge reuse
models are targeted at BOL phase and from different
perspectives, whereas models in MOL phase are mainly
focused on improving maintenance performance, and model in
EOL phase concern environmental effects and are from the
recyclers’ perspective. Therefore, the propositions related to
knowledge reuse in PSS are:
P2a: Future research should focus on facilitating
knowledge reuse in MOL and EOL phase.
P2b: In the PSS context, knowledge reuse model in EOL
phase should also consider the original equipment
manufacturers’ viewpoint to realize sustainability more
effectively and efficiently.
5. Knowledge sharing
Knowledge sharing is another challenge for knowledge
management in PSS. Some studies indicate that an easy-to-use
knowledge repository with codified knowledge will enhance
knowledge sharing [51], which makes codification strategy as
the main knowledge sharing strategy. However, it was also
found that even with formal knowledge repositories,
engineering designers still prefer to contact the senior service
staffs directly to get the necessary knowledge [15]. In addition,
high knowledge complexity makes people-to-people
interactions as a favored knowledge sourcing method [52]. For
instance, in the vehicle industry, people-to-people interactions
are preferred by R&D people when solving complex problems
[53]. In such situation, collaborative activities should be
emphasized by the company, rather than only focusing on
codification approach to share knowledge [54]. In a word,
codification strategy which codifies and stores knowledge in
databases will increase knowledge reuse and sharing volume,
whereas personalization strategy emphasizing person-to-
person contacts could improve the communication of
knowledge tied to the person, and building networks of people
turns to be crucial [54].
Due to the difficulty of retrieving and reusing knowledge
through the non-uniformed knowledge stored in the exiting
scattered repositories, MOL knowledge transfer/sharing
primarily occurred within the individual PLC phase, and the
knowledge transfer across different PLC phases was poor [55].
In addition, knowledge sharing between designers and
recyclers is necessary for designing recycled composite
products. To facilitate such product design, experts in material
and mechanical characterization should also be included to
enrich the material level knowledge for both designers and
recyclers [40]. Therefore, with regards to knowledge sharing in
PSS, we propose that:
Xin, Ojanen, and Huiskonen / Procedia CIRP 00 (2018) 000–000 5
P3a: In the company, it is necessary and complementary to
have a knowledge sharing strategy including both
personalization and codification, and a balance is needed
based on the context.
P3b: A standard form of knowledge representation should
be encouraged to facilitate knowledge sharing across the
different PLC phases.
6. An integral PLC
The ever rapid advancements in ICT not only positively
affect the society, but also makes obsolescence of electronic
products within a short time frame which leads to tremendous
increased quantities of Waste Electrical and Electronic
Equipment (WEEE) [56]. WEEE could be treated as a metal
resource as it contains valuable metals in high amounts such as
cooper, tin, aluminum, gold, and silver [57].
Quoted first in the Swedish government’s report, extended
producer responsibility (EPR) claims that collecting,
recovering, and reusing obsolete products are the original
equipment manufacturers’ responsibility. In addition, they are
also on their own responsible for the disposal of those products
[58]. After that, several regulations and directives were adopted
in EU to improve the chemicals information flow and enhance
the management of chemicals. To promote collecting and
recycling of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE), EU
legislation [59] entered into effect in January 2003. To restrict
the use of hazardous substances in EEE, another EU legislation
[60] took effect in February 2003. In an effort to ensure
‘information on chemicals throughout their life cycle,
including, where appropriate, chemicals in products, is
available, accessible, user friendly, adequate and appropriate
to the needs of all stakeholders’, the Strategic Approach to
International Chemicals Management (SAICM) was proposed
in 2006 [61]. At the same year, Registration, Evaluation,
Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH)
containing a number of provisions to improve information flow
of chemicals was enacted [62].
In practice, however, the treatment results of EOL products
are not as expected. For instance, the mobile phone
consumption globally increases enormously and it leads to a
large volume of waste generated from mobile phone [63]. To
be consistent with the principle of producer responsibility, a
number of mobile phone manufactures implement their own
take-back systems during 2008 and 2009, such as Sony
Ericsson, Nokia, and Motorola [57]. But results from a
literature review of articles dealing with mobile phones
published during 1999–2015 indicate a low recycling rate of
mobile phone in both developing and developed countries [63].
Remanufacturing was claimed to spread worldwide in the auto
parts sector [64], but empirical results from the EOL vehicles’
recycling in Sweden implied a low functional recycling rate for
most of the scarce metals despite the high overall recycling
rates of materials in general [65].
To improve the footprint of environment in EOL, especially
in the recycling phase, actions should be taken as early as
possible. For instance, one option is to eliminate the hazardous
and undesired substances from the products even during the
design phase of those products [57]. In order to accomplish this,
a dependable understanding of the content of substance in the
products is a necessity [57]. If the treatment decisions of the
EOL products have to be made by the recyclers who are not the
original equipment manufacturers, the product information in
BOL and MOL phases turns to be necessary [48]. However, in
practice, this knowledge are not always available, nor is there
any guarantee for the quality [48].
The main goals of lifecycle thinking (LCT) are to reduce
resource usage and emissions to the environment of the
product, and improve its social-economic performance through
its PLC. From this perspective, PLC begins with raw materials
extraction and ends up with final disposal [61]. Moreover, the
chemical related knowledge (for instance which chemicals are
being used, how to use, handle, and recycle or dispose them)
from the producers of chemicals, formulations, and materials
will help product designers to design a more sustainable
product [56]. An adapted waste hierarchy regarding treatment
methods of EOL products was presented by adding
remanufacturing between the reuse and recycling in the
original framework [48,66]. Among them, remanufacturing is
considered as a suitable EOL strategy for life extension to cut
down the overall environmental burden from the product [49].
Based on the discussion above, and related treatment methods
of EOL products with BOL and MOL phases, we developed a
more complete PLC (as shown in Fig. 1.) with regards to
knowledge management and PLC in PSS context. In addition,
a close-loop information flow was emphasized in this frame
considering raw materials extraction and material production.
Based on this, we proposed that:
P4: In PSS, raw materials extraction and material
production should be added to the PLC, although the
companies in these categories might not necessarily be the
suppliers of the manufacturers.
Fig. 1. An integral PLC in PSS context
7. Conclusion and future research
In the current study, some propositions based on a review of
58 journal articles and conference papers are presented with
regards to knowledge and knowledge management throughout
the entire PLC phases, and a new PLC model under PSS
context is developed.
With respect to knowledge requirement, our findings
suggest that in order to meet the knowledge requirements raised
by the stakeholders in different PLC phases, more appropriate
knowledge representation manners are needed. In addition, to
Yan Xin et al. / Procedia CIRP 73 (2018) 203–209 207
4 Xin, Ojanen, and Huiskonen / Procedia CIRP 00 (2018) 000–000
data adequately in the BOL phase to improve the through-life
product performance [43].
In MOL phase
There are only a few models aiming at knowledge reuse in
MOL phase, which have been proposed earlier. A proposed
model based on product characteristics during operation can be
used to predict products status in the future and enable a real-
time predictive maintenance [44]. In order to improve the
logistics performances, a knowledge management system
based on RFID was developed. Through such a system, the
logistics operators can get the right process knowledge at real
time [45]. Based on Bayesian inference, a maintenance
knowledge reuse framework was established to support
decision making of maintenance service [46].
In EOL phase
The knowledge reuse model proposed for EOL phase were
mostly related to environment concerns and from the recyclers’
perspective. Recycling and remanufacturing are integrated
components of sustainable manufacturing [47]. Using item-
level information that was generated through RFID tags, a
knowledge-based framework was proposed from a
recycling/remanufacturing perspective to consider quality
improvement issues relating to repair & refurbishment and
EOL recycling [47]. Using this framework, the process of
sorting and the following processes for recycling of EOL
products can be operated more accurately, therefore
minimizing the pollution that generated unnecessarily by mis-
operation [47]. Taking into account critical product parameters
and key performance indicators of business, a knowledge-
based framework was developed to support the recyclers’
decision making in EOL phase [48]. Mainly using MOL phase
information such as maintenance management and condition
monitoring, a framework was developed to support product life
extension decision in EOL phase, as it can determine the cost
and carbon footprint of life extension process [49].
Across different PLC phases
Product design knowledge, especially recycling-oriented
product characterization can link product design (BOL) and
recycling systems design (EOL). With such knowledge,
recyclers can analyze product characteristics to adapt their
recycling process. In addition, they can communicate with
manufactures to indicate the product characteristics with
positive or negative impact on recycling, thus provide
recommendations for product design improvement [50].
Tracking and managing product data through its entire PLC by
using RF tagging in component level, a RFID-based modular
lifecycle data management system was proposed, which can
help manufactures to achieve optimal product planning with
considering remanufactured components, and help recyclers to
choose the most appropriate recovery option by handling the
quality uncertainty problem [17]. In an ideal situation, iterative
feedback loop with some forms should exist between each PLC
phase, therefore the knowledge or lessons learned from the later
phases could be used to improve the decision making in the
early phases. As found in literature, the feedback loop within
BOL phase (i.e. between design and manufacturing) works
well, while the loop between MOL and BOL is less formal [43].
In a drilling equipment company who provided machineries for
the oil industry, a model facilitating the reuse of MOL
knowledge (service knowledge) across the entire PLC was
proposed [15].
The above literature summarized a variety of knowledge
reuse models/frameworks across the PLC phases. Some of
them are only targeted for one particular phase, while some of
them are focused on knowledge reuse across different PLC
phases. They are proposed from different perspectives, and
with different focus. For instance, most of the knowledge reuse
models are targeted at BOL phase and from different
perspectives, whereas models in MOL phase are mainly
focused on improving maintenance performance, and model in
EOL phase concern environmental effects and are from the
recyclers’ perspective. Therefore, the propositions related to
knowledge reuse in PSS are:
P2a: Future research should focus on facilitating
knowledge reuse in MOL and EOL phase.
P2b: In the PSS context, knowledge reuse model in EOL
phase should also consider the original equipment
manufacturers’ viewpoint to realize sustainability more
effectively and efficiently.
5. Knowledge sharing
Knowledge sharing is another challenge for knowledge
management in PSS. Some studies indicate that an easy-to-use
knowledge repository with codified knowledge will enhance
knowledge sharing [51], which makes codification strategy as
the main knowledge sharing strategy. However, it was also
found that even with formal knowledge repositories,
engineering designers still prefer to contact the senior service
staffs directly to get the necessary knowledge [15]. In addition,
high knowledge complexity makes people-to-people
interactions as a favored knowledge sourcing method [52]. For
instance, in the vehicle industry, people-to-people interactions
are preferred by R&D people when solving complex problems
[53]. In such situation, collaborative activities should be
emphasized by the company, rather than only focusing on
codification approach to share knowledge [54]. In a word,
codification strategy which codifies and stores knowledge in
databases will increase knowledge reuse and sharing volume,
whereas personalization strategy emphasizing person-to-
person contacts could improve the communication of
knowledge tied to the person, and building networks of people
turns to be crucial [54].
Due to the difficulty of retrieving and reusing knowledge
through the non-uniformed knowledge stored in the exiting
scattered repositories, MOL knowledge transfer/sharing
primarily occurred within the individual PLC phase, and the
knowledge transfer across different PLC phases was poor [55].
In addition, knowledge sharing between designers and
recyclers is necessary for designing recycled composite
products. To facilitate such product design, experts in material
and mechanical characterization should also be included to
enrich the material level knowledge for both designers and
recyclers [40]. Therefore, with regards to knowledge sharing in
PSS, we propose that:
Xin, Ojanen, and Huiskonen / Procedia CIRP 00 (2018) 000–000 5
P3a: In the company, it is necessary and complementary to
have a knowledge sharing strategy including both
personalization and codification, and a balance is needed
based on the context.
P3b: A standard form of knowledge representation should
be encouraged to facilitate knowledge sharing across the
different PLC phases.
6. An integral PLC
The ever rapid advancements in ICT not only positively
affect the society, but also makes obsolescence of electronic
products within a short time frame which leads to tremendous
increased quantities of Waste Electrical and Electronic
Equipment (WEEE) [56]. WEEE could be treated as a metal
resource as it contains valuable metals in high amounts such as
cooper, tin, aluminum, gold, and silver [57].
Quoted first in the Swedish government’s report, extended
producer responsibility (EPR) claims that collecting,
recovering, and reusing obsolete products are the original
equipment manufacturers’ responsibility. In addition, they are
also on their own responsible for the disposal of those products
[58]. After that, several regulations and directives were adopted
in EU to improve the chemicals information flow and enhance
the management of chemicals. To promote collecting and
recycling of electrical and electronic equipment (EEE), EU
legislation [59] entered into effect in January 2003. To restrict
the use of hazardous substances in EEE, another EU legislation
[60] took effect in February 2003. In an effort to ensure
‘information on chemicals throughout their life cycle,
including, where appropriate, chemicals in products, is
available, accessible, user friendly, adequate and appropriate
to the needs of all stakeholders’, the Strategic Approach to
International Chemicals Management (SAICM) was proposed
in 2006 [61]. At the same year, Registration, Evaluation,
Authorization and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH)
containing a number of provisions to improve information flow
of chemicals was enacted [62].
In practice, however, the treatment results of EOL products
are not as expected. For instance, the mobile phone
consumption globally increases enormously and it leads to a
large volume of waste generated from mobile phone [63]. To
be consistent with the principle of producer responsibility, a
number of mobile phone manufactures implement their own
take-back systems during 2008 and 2009, such as Sony
Ericsson, Nokia, and Motorola [57]. But results from a
literature review of articles dealing with mobile phones
published during 1999–2015 indicate a low recycling rate of
mobile phone in both developing and developed countries [63].
Remanufacturing was claimed to spread worldwide in the auto
parts sector [64], but empirical results from the EOL vehicles’
recycling in Sweden implied a low functional recycling rate for
most of the scarce metals despite the high overall recycling
rates of materials in general [65].
To improve the footprint of environment in EOL, especially
in the recycling phase, actions should be taken as early as
possible. For instance, one option is to eliminate the hazardous
and undesired substances from the products even during the
design phase of those products [57]. In order to accomplish this,
a dependable understanding of the content of substance in the
products is a necessity [57]. If the treatment decisions of the
EOL products have to be made by the recyclers who are not the
original equipment manufacturers, the product information in
BOL and MOL phases turns to be necessary [48]. However, in
practice, this knowledge are not always available, nor is there
any guarantee for the quality [48].
The main goals of lifecycle thinking (LCT) are to reduce
resource usage and emissions to the environment of the
product, and improve its social-economic performance through
its PLC. From this perspective, PLC begins with raw materials
extraction and ends up with final disposal [61]. Moreover, the
chemical related knowledge (for instance which chemicals are
being used, how to use, handle, and recycle or dispose them)
from the producers of chemicals, formulations, and materials
will help product designers to design a more sustainable
product [56]. An adapted waste hierarchy regarding treatment
methods of EOL products was presented by adding
remanufacturing between the reuse and recycling in the
original framework [48,66]. Among them, remanufacturing is
considered as a suitable EOL strategy for life extension to cut
down the overall environmental burden from the product [49].
Based on the discussion above, and related treatment methods
of EOL products with BOL and MOL phases, we developed a
more complete PLC (as shown in Fig. 1.) with regards to
knowledge management and PLC in PSS context. In addition,
a close-loop information flow was emphasized in this frame
considering raw materials extraction and material production.
Based on this, we proposed that:
P4: In PSS, raw materials extraction and material
production should be added to the PLC, although the
companies in these categories might not necessarily be the
suppliers of the manufacturers.
Fig. 1. An integral PLC in PSS context
7. Conclusion and future research
In the current study, some propositions based on a review of
58 journal articles and conference papers are presented with
regards to knowledge and knowledge management throughout
the entire PLC phases, and a new PLC model under PSS
context is developed.
With respect to knowledge requirement, our findings
suggest that in order to meet the knowledge requirements raised
by the stakeholders in different PLC phases, more appropriate
knowledge representation manners are needed. In addition, to
208 Yan Xin et al. / Procedia CIRP 73 (2018) 203–209
6 Xin, Ojanen, and Huiskonen / Procedia CIRP 00 (2018) 000–000
fulfill the above requirements, the identification and
classification of the most important knowledge for different
stakeholders turns to be crucial. Concerning knowledge reuse,
insufficient existing studies for knowledge reuse in MOL and
EOL phases implies a necessity to conduct more research in
these particular phases. Regarding knowledge sharing, both
personalization and codification strategy should be adopted by
the companies depending on the context. Moreover, to
facilitate knowledge sharing across the entire lifecycle, a
standard knowledge representation form should be stimulated.
Integrating lifecycle thinking in PSS domain, our findings
suggest that the previous PLC should be extended to include
raw materials extraction and materials production. By doing so,
a close-loop information flow could be emphasized to achieve
real ‘sustainability’ for the PSS.
Only journal articles and conference papers are included in
the current study to formulate propositions. However, some
studies from other sources, such as findings from the relevant
projects, may be more timely. Therefore, future studies with a
more comprehensive literature including recent projects
outputs would help to enrich the insights. In addition, with the
transition to PSS for many manufacturing companies,
especially the manufactures of long-life complex products,
management of knowledge retention should be taken into
account in future studies due to its increasingly importance and
difficulty. Moreover, the on-going digitalization
transformation will raise great opportunities and challenges to
the companies from different aspects. Consequently, these
impacts on knowledge management in PSS context should be
further investigated in future studies.
Based on the current results, we are planning to investigate
these propositions in PSS providers through a series of in-depth
case studies. By doing so, we hope to have a more fine-grained
understanding of knowledge management practice in PSS,
especially through the PLC perspective. Therefore, different
stakeholders along the PLC phases can be guided to better
manage knowledge in PSS context, and academia can get some
insights for future research directions about knowledge
management in PSS.
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6 Xin, Ojanen, and Huiskonen / Procedia CIRP 00 (2018) 000–000
fulfill the above requirements, the identification and
classification of the most important knowledge for different
stakeholders turns to be crucial. Concerning knowledge reuse,
insufficient existing studies for knowledge reuse in MOL and
EOL phases implies a necessity to conduct more research in
these particular phases. Regarding knowledge sharing, both
personalization and codification strategy should be adopted by
the companies depending on the context. Moreover, to
facilitate knowledge sharing across the entire lifecycle, a
standard knowledge representation form should be stimulated.
Integrating lifecycle thinking in PSS domain, our findings
suggest that the previous PLC should be extended to include
raw materials extraction and materials production. By doing so,
a close-loop information flow could be emphasized to achieve
real ‘sustainability’ for the PSS.
Only journal articles and conference papers are included in
the current study to formulate propositions. However, some
studies from other sources, such as findings from the relevant
projects, may be more timely. Therefore, future studies with a
more comprehensive literature including recent projects
outputs would help to enrich the insights. In addition, with the
transition to PSS for many manufacturing companies,
especially the manufactures of long-life complex products,
management of knowledge retention should be taken into
account in future studies due to its increasingly importance and
difficulty. Moreover, the on-going digitalization
transformation will raise great opportunities and challenges to
the companies from different aspects. Consequently, these
impacts on knowledge management in PSS context should be
further investigated in future studies.
Based on the current results, we are planning to investigate
these propositions in PSS providers through a series of in-depth
case studies. By doing so, we hope to have a more fine-grained
understanding of knowledge management practice in PSS,
especially through the PLC perspective. Therefore, different
stakeholders along the PLC phases can be guided to better
manage knowledge in PSS context, and academia can get some
insights for future research directions about knowledge
management in PSS.
References
[1] Tukker A. Product services for a resource-efficient and circular economy -
a review. J Clean Prod 2015; 97:76-91.
[2] Boehm M, Thomas O. Looking beyond the rim of one’s teacup: a
multidisciplinary literature review of Product-Service Systems in
Information Systems, Business Management, and Engineering & Design. J
Clean Prod 2013; 51:245-60.
[3] Baines TS, Lightfoot H, Steve E, Neely A, Greenough R, Peppard J, Roy
R, Shehab E, Braganza A, Tiwari A, Alcock J, Angus J, Bastl M, Cousens
A, Irving P, Johnson M, Kingston J, Lockett H, Martinez V, Michele P,
Tranfield D, Walton I, Wilson H. State-of-the-art in product-service
systems. P I Mech Eng B-J Eng 2007; 221:1543-52.
[4] Sundin E, Lindahl M, Ijomah W. Product design for product/service
systems: Design experiences from Swedish industry. J Manuf Tech Manag
2009; 20:723-53.
[5] Thomas V, Neckel W, Wagner S. Information technology and product
lifecycle management.in Proc. IEEE Int. Symp. on Electron. Environ 1999;
Danvers, MA, pp. 54-57.
[6] Kiritsis D. Closed-loop PLM for intelligent products in the era of the
Internet of Things. Compu. Aided Des. 2011; 43:479-501.
[7] Stark J. Product Lifecycle Management: 21st Century Paradigm for Product
Realisation. London: Springer; 2011.
[8] Baxter D, Roy R, Doultsinou A, Gao J, Kalta M. (2009). A knowledge
management framework to support product-service systems design. Int J
Comp Integ Manufg 2009; 22(12):1173-88.
[9] Thompson G. Improving Maintainability and Reliability through Design.
UK: Professional Engineering Publishing; 1999.
[10] Jagtap S, Johnson A, Aurisicchio M, Wallace K. In-service information
required by engineering designers. ICED'07 2007; Paris, France.
[11] Johansson C, Hicks B, Larsson AC, Bertoni M. Knowledge maturity as a
means to support decision making during product-service systems
development projects in the aerospace sector. Proj Manag J 2010; 42(2):32-
50.
[12] Sander PC, Brombacher AC. Analysis of quality information flows in the
product creation process of high-volume consumer products. Int J Prod
Econ 2010; 67(1):37-52.
[13] Zhang D, Hu D, Xu Y, Zhang H. A framework for design knowledge
management and reuse for Product-Service Systems in construction
machinery industry. Comput Ind 2012; 63:328-37.
[14] Roy R, Mehnen J, Addepalli S, Redding L, Tinsley L, Okoh C. Service
knowledge capture and reuse. Procedia CIRP 2014; 16:9-14.
[15] Ahmed-Kristensen S, Vianello G. A model for reusing service knowledge
based on an empirical case. Res Eng Des 2014; 26(1):57-76.
[16] Vila C, Abellán-Nebot JV, Albiñana JC, Hernández G. An approach to
sustainable product lifecycle management (Green PLM). Procedia
Engineering 2015; 132:585-92.
[17] Kim YW, Park J. A lifecycle data management system based on RFID
technology of EPC Class1 Gen2 v2. Proceedings of IFIP WG 5.7 Int
Conference, Advances in Prod Manag Syst (APMS) 2014; Part II:294-301.
doi:10.1007/978-3-662-44736-9_36.
[18] Thierry M, Salomon M, van Nunen J, van Wassenhove L. Strategic issues
in product recovery management. Calif Manage Rev 1995; 37:114-35.
[19] Parlikad A, McFarlane D. RFID-based product information in end-of-life
decision making. Control Eng Pract 2007; 15:1348-63.
[20] Newell S, Robertson M, Scarbrough H, Swan J. Managing Knowledge
Work and Innovation (2nd ed.). Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. 2009.
P.277.
[21] Tang D, Zhu R, Tang J, Xu R, He R. Product design knowledge
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Publication IV
Xin, Y., Ojanen, V., and Huiskonen, J.
Dealing with knowledge management practices in different lifecycle phases within
product-service systems
Reprinted with permission from
Procedia CIRP
Vol. 83, pp. 111-117, 2019
© 2019, Elsevier
ScienceDirect
Available online at www.sciencedirect.comAvailable online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect
Procedia CIRP 00 (2017) 000–000
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia
2212-8271 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 28th CIRP Design Conference 2018.
28th CIRP Design Conference, May 2018, Nantes, France
A new methodology to analyze the functional and physical architecture of
existing products for an assembly oriented product family identification
Paul Stief *, Jean-Yves Dantan, Alain Etienne, Ali Siadat
École Nationale Supérieure d’Arts et Métiers, Arts et Métiers ParisTech, LCFC EA 4495, 4 Rue Augustin Fresnel, Metz 57078, France
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +33 3 87 37 54 30; E-mail address: paul.stief@ensam.eu
Abstract
In today’s business environment, the trend towards more product variety and customization is unbroken. Due to this development, the need of
agile and reconfigurable production systems emerged to cope with various products and product families. To design and optimize production
systems as well as to choose the optimal product matches, product analysis methods are needed. Indeed, most of the known methods aim to
analyze a product or one product family on the physical level. Different product families, however, may differ largely in terms of the number and
nature of components. This fact impedes an efficient comparison and choice of appropriate product family combinations for the production
system. A new methodology is proposed to analyze existing products in view of their functional and physical architecture. The aim is to cluster
these products in new assembly oriented product families for the optimization of existing assembly lines and the creation of future reconfigurable
assembly systems. Based on Datum Flow Chain, the physical structure of the products is analyzed. Functional subassemblies are identified, and
a functional analysis is performed. Moreover, a hybrid functional and physical architecture graph (HyFPAG) is the output which depicts the
similarity between product families by providing design support to both, production system planners and product designers. An illustrative
example of a nail-clipper is used to explain the proposed methodology. An industrial case study on two product families of steering columns of
thyssenkrupp Presta France is then carried out to give a first industrial evaluation of the proposed approach.
© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 28th CIRP Design Conference 2018.
Keywords: Assembly; Design method; Family identification
1. Introduction
Due to the fast development in the domain of
communication and an ongoing trend of digitization and
digitalization, manufacturing enterprises are facing important
challenges in today’s market environments: a continuing
tendency towards reduction of product development times and
shortened product lifecycles. In addition, there is an increasing
demand of customization, being at the same time in a global
competition with competitors all over the world. This trend,
which is inducing the development from macro to micro
markets, results in diminished lot sizes due to augmenting
product varieties (high-volume to low-volume production) [1].
To cope with this augmenting variety as well as to be able to
identify possible optimization potentials in the existing
production system, it is important to have a precise knowledge
of the product range and characteristics manufactured and/or
assembled in this system. In this context, the main challenge in
modelling and analysis is now not only to cope with single
products, a limited product range or existing product families,
but also to be able to analyze and to compare products to define
new product families. It can be observed that classical existing
product families are regrouped in function of clients or features.
However, assembly oriented product families are hardly to find.
On the product family level, products differ mainly in two
main characteristics: (i) the number of components and (ii) the
type of components (e.g. mechanical, electrical, electronical).
Classical methodologies considering mainly single products
or solitary, already existing product families analyze the
product structure on a physical level (components level) which
causes difficulties regarding an efficient definition and
comparison of different product families. Addressing this
Procedia CIRP 83 (2019) 111–117
2212-8271 © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 11th CIRP Conference on Industrial Product-Service Systems.
10.1016/j.procir.2019.02.132
© 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 11th CIRP Conference on Industrial Product-Service Systems
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect
Procedia CIRP 00 (2019) 000–000
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia
2212-8271 © 2019 The Authors. Published b El evier B.V.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 11th CIRP Conference on Industrial Product-Service Systems.
doi:10.1016/j.procir.2017.04.009
11th CIRP Conference on Industrial Product-Service Systems
Dealing with Knowledge Management Practices in Different Product
Lifecycle Phases within Product-service Systems
Yan Xin*, Ville Ojanen, Janne Huiskonen
LUT University, Yliopistonkatu 34, 53850 Lappeenranta, Finland
* Tel.: +358 29 44 64040; E-mail address: yan.xin@lut.fi
Abstract
Through semi-structured interviews in six companies, the current paper investigates the knowledge management practices in product-service
systems from product lifecycle perspective. Knowledge requirements (types/sources), knowledge sharing, and knowledge reuse in both
beginning-of-life and middle-of-life phases are our focus. Similarities and differences on knowledge management practices were found in the
two phases. Our finding suggests that in the current digital era, in order to keep competitive, the knowledge requirements in different PLC phases
sh uld be clearly id tified, the importance of people should be re-emphasize , external collaboration should b strengthened, and standardizati n
should be advocated in the compa y.
© 2019 The Auth rs. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scie tific committee of the 11th CIRP Conference on Industrial Product-Service Systems.
Keywords: Knowledge management; Product lifecycle; Beginning-of-life; Middle- f-life; Product-service s stems
1. Introduction
Sustainability, digitalization, and product lifecycle
management (PLM) are popular topics for both academia and
industry. Considering all of them together, product-service
systems (PSS) integrating bundle of products and services to
create customer utility and generate value have become an
emerging issue [1]. Originated in Europe, the application of
PSS have been worldwide and across various research areas.
However, existing PSS literature has mostly been based on case
studies, especially single case studies [2, 3]. Therefore, multiple
case studies or even large scales quantitative research would
contribute to both industry and academia for PSS.
The objective of knowledge management is to capture and
store the past experience and information and reuse them later
to deal with new problems [4]. Along the product lifecycle,
including beginning-of-life (BOL), middle-of-life (MOL), and
end-of-life (EOL) phase [5], knowledge management is
naturally distributed to the different stakeholders in PSS.
However, BOL phase is the focus among the existing
researches, and MOL phase is still not comprehensive [6].
Therefore, further investigation of knowledge management
practices in MOL phase would shed light on the PSS research,
especially in the current digital era
In response to the discussion above, the current study aims
at investigating the knowledge management practices further in
the PSS context, including both BOL and MOL phases.
Therefore, our research questions will be: What are the
knowledge management practices in both BOL and MOL
phases under the PSS context? What are the impacts of
digitalization on the above mentioned knowledge management
practices? How to deal with this? In particular, we will focus
on both the similarity and difference of knowledge management
between these two phases. By doing so, we hope that companies
can get more insight on their own knowledge management
status quo, and keep competitive through better knowledge
management in the ever changing digital era.
Section 2 will explain the theoretical background of this
study. In section 3, research method will be described and the
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
Sci nceDirect
Procedia CIRP 00 (2019) 000–000
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia
2212-8271 © 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 11th CIRP Conference on Industrial Product-Service Systems.
doi:10.1016/j.procir.2017.04.009
11th CIRP Conference on Industrial Product-Service Systems
Dealing with Knowledge Manag ment Practices in Different Product
Lifecycle Phases within Product-service Systems
Yan Xin*, Ville Ojanen, Janne Huiskonen
LUT University, Yliopistonkatu 34, 53850 Lappeenranta, Finland
* Tel.: +358 29 44 64040; E-mail address: yan.xin@lut.fi
Abstract
Through se i-st uctured interviews in six companies, th current paper investigates the knowledge management practices in p oduct-service
systems fr m product lifecycle p rspective. Knowledge requirements (types/sources), l sharing, a d knowledg reuse in both
beginning-of-life and middle-of-life phases are our focus. Similariti s and differences on knowledge management practices were found in the
two phases. Our f nding suggests that in the current digital era, in order to k ep competitive, the kn wledge requirements in different PLC phases
clearly identified, the importance of people should be re-emphasized, external collaboration should be strengthened, and standardization
should be advocated in the company.
© 2019 The Autho s. Publ shed by Elsevier B.V.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 11th CIRP Conference on Industrial Product-Service Systems.
K ywords: Knowledge management; Product lifecycle; Beginning-of-life; Middle-of-life; Product-service systems
1. Introduction
Sustainability, digitalization, and product lifecycle
management (PLM) are popular topics for both academia and
industry. Considering all of th m together, product-service
systems (PSS) integrating bundl of prod cts and s rvic s to
create custom r utility and generate value ave be ome an
emerging issue [1]. Originate in Europe, the appli ation of
PSS have been worldw de and across various research areas.
How ver, existing PSS literature has mostly be n bas d on cas
studies, especially single case studies [2, 3]. The fore, multip e
ase st dies or even large scales quantitative research would
contribute to both industry and academia for PSS.
The objective of k owle ge man gement is to capture nd
store the past experienc and information and reuse them lat r
to deal with new pr blems [4]. Along the product lifecycle,
i cluding beginning-of-life (BOL), middle-of-life (MOL), and
end-of-life (EOL) phase [5], knowledge management is
naturally distributed to the different stakeholders in PSS.
However, BOL phase is the focus among the existing
res arches, and MOL phase is still not comprehe siv [6].
Therefore, further inv stigation of knowledg manag ment
practices in MOL phase would shed light on the PSS research,
especially i the current digital era
In response to the discussion bov , the current tudy aims
at investigati g the k owled e management practices further in
the PSS context, including both BOL and MOL phases.
Therefore, our research questions will be: What are the
knowledge management practices in both BOL and MOL
phases under the PSS context? What are the impacts of
digitalization on the above mentioned knowledge management
practices? How to de l with this? In particular, we will focus
on both the similarity nd difference of knowledge management
betwe n thes two p ases. By doing so, we hope that companies
can get more insight on th ir own knowledge ma agement
st tus quo, and ke p compet tive through better knowledge
management in the ever changing digital era.
Section 2 will explain the theoretical backgroun of this
study. In section 3, research method will be described and the
112 Yan Xin et al. / Procedia CIRP 83 (2019) 111–117
Author name / Procedia CIRP 00 (2019) 000–000 3
requirements (types/sources of knowledge used), knowledge
sharing, knowledge reuse, and the impact of digitalization on
knowledge management (see Appendix). Upon permission, all
the interviews were audio recorded, except for the two
interviews conducted in the second manufacturing company
(M2), and one interview conducted in the third manufacturing
company (M3, P1), which were written down by the
interviewer. The audio records were fully transcribed by the
interviewer, and checked for accuracy through repeated
listening.
3.4. Data analysis
Data were analyzed using NVivo data analysis tool (Version
12). To make the comparison within and between the two
phases (EOL and MOL) more clearly, the two transcripts for
each manufacturing company were combined into one.
Therefore, finally six files representing six companies were
imported to NVivo, three representing EOL in manufacturing
companies (M1, M2, and M3) and three representing MOL in
logistics companies (L1, L2, and L3). The initial nodes were
created in NVivo based on the main themes from the research
questions, i.e. knowledge requirements, knowledge sharing,
knowledge reuse, and impact of digitalization on knowledge
management.
4. Results
Data analysis results following the interview guidelines, i.e.
knowledge requirements (types/sources), knowledge sharing,
knowledge reuse, and the impact of digitalization on
knowledge management will be shown in this section.
Although not listed in the initial interview guidelines, result
related to sustainability will be included as all R&D staff
emphasized this.
4.1. Knowledge requirements
Table 2. Knowledge used types/sources
During the interviews, different types of knowledge were
mentioned (see Table 2). Among them, expertise is the only
type of knowledge that was indicated in each interview.
However, the types of knowledge that were defined as expertise
were quite different between the two groups of people. For the
R&D people, expertise was mostly related to design,
development, technology, and manufacturing process. For the
logistics people, it was mostly related to import & export,
insurance, and policy & legal aspects. One logistics staff (L1)
even clearly indicated that design knowledge and development
knowledge were completely irrelevant. Because of this
difference, their sources were different as well. Professional
background was a must for the R&D people, and they
accumulated their expertise through self-learning, through
learning by doing, and also acquired from employees in other
departments. In contrast, except for learning by doing, most of
the logistics people got expertise from government and even
from the competitors. Sometimes, expertise acquired from
competitors are more useful as they are more relevant (L1).
That probably was the reason to explain why the R&D staff
believed that it was not difficult to get the relevant knowledge
for their work (M2 and M3). Whenever it was difficult, most of
the time they could get the knowledge from other channels,
especially through person-to-person communication (M3).
However, the logistics staffs expected that the government
could organize more special meetings so that they can get more
timely updates.
Customer knowledge was also indicated by most of the
companies. Similar to expertise, the focus of the two groups
was different. The R&D people paid more attention to market
demand, customer needs, and their using experience, for the
sake of new product development and future product
improvement. Therefore, these knowledge were mostly
acquired from the report or feedback from other departments,
such as marketing, sales, and quality. However, the logistics
people paid more attention to the features of the customers’
products, because they wanted to fulfill the transportation and
legal requirements and at the same time lower the risk involved.
Therefore, they usefully got this knowledge from customer
directly. In addition, sometimes customers even actively
emphasized their special requirements because they also
wanted to minimize their own risk (L1 and L3).
Market knowledge was the knowledge mentioned only by
R&D staff, and all R&D staff indicated this as they need to
have sufficient market knowledge to analyze their competitors.
Usually, they got this knowledge from conference &
exhibitions, customers, and suppliers (M1, M2, and M3). In
particular, all R&D staff emphasized the importance of
attending conference & exhibitions. Industry knowledge was
the knowledge mentioned only by logistics staff, and only by
one of them because the customers were from a variety of
industries.
‘Every industry is different. For example, oil and
pharmaceutical industry, they are very different. Petroleum
equipment may be very expensive, but it is very strong and
heavy. Therefore, you have to consider the overweight and
over length for transportation, as they are not regular
goods. Especially when it is urgent and airfreight is
necessary, the limitation of weight and length of aircraft
makes the transportation extremely challenging. However
when you need to deliver vaccines, your focus then have to
change to hygiene, safety, and temperature. In addition to
customer requirements, industry standard must be met for
this particular industry.’ (L3)
Supplier knowledge was mentioned once by R&D staff and
by logistics staff, respectively. The R&D staff focused on new
materials and innovations from suppliers to apply them to their
own product development faster (M2), whereas the logistics
staff focused on the suppliers’ transportation capacity because
sometimes their own fleet cannot meet customer requirements
(L3).
L1 L2 L3 M1 M2 M3
customer knowledge √ √ √ √ √
industry knowledge √
market knowledge √ √ √
supplier knowledge √ √
expertise √ √ √ √ √ √
2 Author name / Procedia CIRP 00 (2019) 000–000
detailed data analysis results will be presented in section 4.
Conclusion and suggestions will be discussed in section 5.
2. Theoretical background
Knowledge management not only focuses on creating new
knowledge, but also aims to capture and store the past
experience and leverage them within and around the company
through knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse [4, 7].
Essentially, different stakeholders in sustainability oriented
PSS are actors along the entire product lifecycle, from BOL
(design and manufacturing), MOL (external logistics, use, and
support) to EOL (reuse, recycling, remanufacturing, and
disposal) [5]. As an indispensable resource, knowledge turns to
be even more important for these companies to enhance the
competitiveness in PSS context because knowledge from
different PLC phases, no matter focusing in one particular area
or multi-disciplinary, will be used intensively by them.
Consequently, knowledge management will be more
challenging for these companies [8]. In order to have a better
understanding on knowledge management practices in these
companies, we therefore focus on knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse practices based on the existing literature.
The benefit of using MOL knowledge in BOL phases, and
vice versa, had been investigated in earlier studies. For
instance, the engineering knowledge from BOL phase helped
the service staffs in MOL phase to improve maintenance and
repair [9], whereas the use-related, or in-service knowledge
from MOL phase helped designers and engineers in the BOL
phase to improve future product development [10, 11].
However, as an important sub-phase in MOL, the knowledge
management practices of external distribution (logistics) had
rarely been empirically explored in the PSS context [12]. The
ever-increasing competition made many manufacturing
companies outsource their logistics to streamline the value
chains [13]. Therefore, exploring knowledge management
practices in logistic companies will in turn help to understand
the knowledge management in manufacturing companies
better, especially help to understand the possible knowledge
sharing and knowledge reuse between these two types of
companies. This is the main reason why we decided to choose
logistics company to represent the MOL phase of PLC in the
PSS context. For the BOL phase, R&D was chosen as the
representative in our study because it is very knowledge-
intensive [14] and is well known as the most important stage in
PLC.
Based on the discussion above, this study therefore focuses
on knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse in BOL phase
(R&D as representative) and MOL phase (logistics as
representative) in PSS context. Being the object of knowledge
management, the knowledge requirements, especially
types/sources of knowledge used in these two PLC phases will
be involved as well. Considering the opportunities and
challenges that may raise due to the on-going digitalization
transformation, the impact of digitalization on knowledge
management will also be investigated [15].
3. Research method
3.1. Study design and setting
The empirical study was conducted in manufacturing
companies and logistics companies in Beijing, China. Semi-
structured interviews were used in this study because the data
collection process was flexible and the relevant topics could be
ensured to be covered in each interview [16, 17].
3.2. Sample and recruitment
Key informants were purposively selected based on their
relevance with our research topic. The participants in
manufacturing companies were familiar with knowledge
management of R&D to represent EOL, whereas the
participants from logistics companies were familiar with
knowledge management in logistics to represent MOL. Email
invitation was sent to each participants, clearly outlining the
purpose of the research and how data would be used.
3.3. Data collection
In order to fulfill ethical research practice standards,
informed consent was obtained from participants before
conducting each interview [18]. Identifiable details were
excluded to protect confidentiality, but the job titles were
remained [18, 19]. In addition, the participants were made
aware that they were free to withdraw from the study before,
during, and after data collection [18].
Nine semi-structured interviews of six companies in Beijing
were conducted between July and October 2018, as shown in
Table 1. The manufacturing companies were in in different
industries, ranging from traditional (printing) to high-tech
industry (electronic measurement), and were relatively big
concerning staff number, with at least 100 employees in
Beijing. The participants were R&D staff, former R&D staff,
or staff who are quite familiar with R&D and communicated
frequently with R&D department. In contrast, the logistics
companies were relatively small, with less than 100 employees
in Beijing. The participants were in charge of logistics
operation in the company.
Table 1. Profile of the company and interviewee
The length of the interviews ranged from 45 to 120 minutes.
During the interviews, participants were asked about the
questions around knowledge management strategies/practices
in the company from their perspectives, including knowledge
Company Sector
No. of
employee Interviewee
Length of
interview
(minutes)
(P1) senior supply chain manager 120
(P2) R&D manager 80
(P1) R&D manager 70
(P2) senior project manager 80
(P1) product planning master, former
R&D engineer
90
(P2) channel manager, former R&D
engineer
80
L1 1~49 customer service & customs manager 75
L2 50~99 port & customs manager 45
L3 1~49 operations manager 60
Logistics
500~999
100~499
1000+
Manufacturing
M1 printing
M2 automobile
M3
electronic
measurement
Yan Xin et al. / Procedia CIRP 83 (2019) 111–117 113
Author name / Procedia CIRP 00 (2019) 000–000 3
requirements (types/sources of knowledge used), knowledge
sharing, knowledge reuse, and the impact of digitalization on
knowledge management (see Appendix). Upon permission, all
the interviews were audio recorded, except for the two
interviews conducted in the second manufacturing company
(M2), and one interview conducted in the third manufacturing
company (M3, P1), which were written down by the
interviewer. The audio records were fully transcribed by the
interviewer, and checked for accuracy through repeated
listening.
3.4. Data analysis
Data were analyzed using NVivo data analysis tool (Version
12). To make the comparison within and between the two
phases (EOL and MOL) more clearly, the two transcripts for
each manufacturing company were combined into one.
Therefore, finally six files representing six companies were
imported to NVivo, three representing EOL in manufacturing
companies (M1, M2, and M3) and three representing MOL in
logistics companies (L1, L2, and L3). The initial nodes were
created in NVivo based on the main themes from the research
questions, i.e. knowledge requirements, knowledge sharing,
knowledge reuse, and impact of digitalization on knowledge
management.
4. Results
Data analysis results following the interview guidelines, i.e.
knowledge requirements (types/sources), knowledge sharing,
knowledge reuse, and the impact of digitalization on
knowledge management will be shown in this section.
Although not listed in the initial interview guidelines, result
related to sustainability will be included as all R&D staff
emphasized this.
4.1. Knowledge requirements
Table 2. Knowledge used types/sources
During the interviews, different types of knowledge were
mentioned (see Table 2). Among them, expertise is the only
type of knowledge that was indicated in each interview.
However, the types of knowledge that were defined as expertise
were quite different between the two groups of people. For the
R&D people, expertise was mostly related to design,
development, technology, and manufacturing process. For the
logistics people, it was mostly related to import & export,
insurance, and policy & legal aspects. One logistics staff (L1)
even clearly indicated that design knowledge and development
knowledge were completely irrelevant. Because of this
difference, their sources were different as well. Professional
background was a must for the R&D people, and they
accumulated their expertise through self-learning, through
learning by doing, and also acquired from employees in other
departments. In contrast, except for learning by doing, most of
the logistics people got expertise from government and even
from the competitors. Sometimes, expertise acquired from
competitors are more useful as they are more relevant (L1).
That probably was the reason to explain why the R&D staff
believed that it was not difficult to get the relevant knowledge
for their work (M2 and M3). Whenever it was difficult, most of
the time they could get the knowledge from other channels,
especially through person-to-person communication (M3).
However, the logistics staffs expected that the government
could organize more special meetings so that they can get more
timely updates.
Customer knowledge was also indicated by most of the
companies. Similar to expertise, the focus of the two groups
was different. The R&D people paid more attention to market
demand, customer needs, and their using experience, for the
sake of new product development and future product
improvement. Therefore, these knowledge were mostly
acquired from the report or feedback from other departments,
such as marketing, sales, and quality. However, the logistics
people paid more attention to the features of the customers’
products, because they wanted to fulfill the transportation and
legal requirements and at the same time lower the risk involved.
Therefore, they usefully got this knowledge from customer
directly. In addition, sometimes customers even actively
emphasized their special requirements because they also
wanted to minimize their own risk (L1 and L3).
Market knowledge was the knowledge mentioned only by
R&D staff, and all R&D staff indicated this as they need to
have sufficient market knowledge to analyze their competitors.
Usually, they got this knowledge from conference &
exhibitions, customers, and suppliers (M1, M2, and M3). In
particular, all R&D staff emphasized the importance of
attending conference & exhibitions. Industry knowledge was
the knowledge mentioned only by logistics staff, and only by
one of them because the customers were from a variety of
industries.
‘Every industry is different. For example, oil and
pharmaceutical industry, they are very different. Petroleum
equipment may be very expensive, but it is very strong and
heavy. Therefore, you have to consider the overweight and
over length for transportation, as they are not regular
goods. Especially when it is urgent and airfreight is
necessary, the limitation of weight and length of aircraft
makes the transportation extremely challenging. However
when you need to deliver vaccines, your focus then have to
change to hygiene, safety, and temperature. In addition to
customer requirements, industry standard must be met for
this particular industry.’ (L3)
Supplier knowledge was mentioned once by R&D staff and
by logistics staff, respectively. The R&D staff focused on new
materials and innovations from suppliers to apply them to their
own product development faster (M2), whereas the logistics
staff focused on the suppliers’ transportation capacity because
sometimes their own fleet cannot meet customer requirements
(L3).
L1 L2 L3 M1 M2 M3
customer knowledge √ √ √ √ √
industry knowledge √
market knowledge √ √ √
supplier knowledge √ √
expertise √ √ √ √ √ √
2 Author name / Procedia CIRP 00 (2019) 000–000
detailed data analysis results will be presented in section 4.
Conclusion and suggestions will be discussed in section 5.
2. Theoretical background
Knowledge management not only focuses on creating new
knowledge, but also aims to capture and store the past
experience and leverage them within and around the company
through knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse [4, 7].
Essentially, different stakeholders in sustainability oriented
PSS are actors along the entire product lifecycle, from BOL
(design and manufacturing), MOL (external logistics, use, and
support) to EOL (reuse, recycling, remanufacturing, and
disposal) [5]. As an indispensable resource, knowledge turns to
be even more important for these companies to enhance the
competitiveness in PSS context because knowledge from
different PLC phases, no matter focusing in one particular area
or multi-disciplinary, will be used intensively by them.
Consequently, knowledge management will be more
challenging for these companies [8]. In order to have a better
understanding on knowledge management practices in these
companies, we therefore focus on knowledge sharing and
knowledge reuse practices based on the existing literature.
The benefit of using MOL knowledge in BOL phases, and
vice versa, had been investigated in earlier studies. For
instance, the engineering knowledge from BOL phase helped
the service staffs in MOL phase to improve maintenance and
repair [9], whereas the use-related, or in-service knowledge
from MOL phase helped designers and engineers in the BOL
phase to improve future product development [10, 11].
However, as an important sub-phase in MOL, the knowledge
management practices of external distribution (logistics) had
rarely been empirically explored in the PSS context [12]. The
ever-increasing competition made many manufacturing
companies outsource their logistics to streamline the value
chains [13]. Therefore, exploring knowledge management
practices in logistic companies will in turn help to understand
the knowledge management in manufacturing companies
better, especially help to understand the possible knowledge
sharing and knowledge reuse between these two types of
companies. This is the main reason why we decided to choose
logistics company to represent the MOL phase of PLC in the
PSS context. For the BOL phase, R&D was chosen as the
representative in our study because it is very knowledge-
intensive [14] and is well known as the most important stage in
PLC.
Based on the discussion above, this study therefore focuses
on knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse in BOL phase
(R&D as representative) and MOL phase (logistics as
representative) in PSS context. Being the object of knowledge
management, the knowledge requirements, especially
types/sources of knowledge used in these two PLC phases will
be involved as well. Considering the opportunities and
challenges that may raise due to the on-going digitalization
transformation, the impact of digitalization on knowledge
management will also be investigated [15].
3. Research method
3.1. Study design and setting
The empirical study was conducted in manufacturing
companies and logistics companies in Beijing, China. Semi-
structured interviews were used in this study because the data
collection process was flexible and the relevant topics could be
ensured to be covered in each interview [16, 17].
3.2. Sample and recruitment
Key informants were purposively selected based on their
relevance with our research topic. The participants in
manufacturing companies were familiar with knowledge
management of R&D to represent EOL, whereas the
participants from logistics companies were familiar with
knowledge management in logistics to represent MOL. Email
invitation was sent to each participants, clearly outlining the
purpose of the research and how data would be used.
3.3. Data collection
In order to fulfill ethical research practice standards,
informed consent was obtained from participants before
conducting each interview [18]. Identifiable details were
excluded to protect confidentiality, but the job titles were
remained [18, 19]. In addition, the participants were made
aware that they were free to withdraw from the study before,
during, and after data collection [18].
Nine semi-structured interviews of six companies in Beijing
were conducted between July and October 2018, as shown in
Table 1. The manufacturing companies were in in different
industries, ranging from traditional (printing) to high-tech
industry (electronic measurement), and were relatively big
concerning staff number, with at least 100 employees in
Beijing. The participants were R&D staff, former R&D staff,
or staff who are quite familiar with R&D and communicated
frequently with R&D department. In contrast, the logistics
companies were relatively small, with less than 100 employees
in Beijing. The participants were in charge of logistics
operation in the company.
Table 1. Profile of the company and interviewee
The length of the interviews ranged from 45 to 120 minutes.
During the interviews, participants were asked about the
questions around knowledge management strategies/practices
in the company from their perspectives, including knowledge
Company Sector
No. of
employee Interviewee
Length of
interview
(minutes)
(P1) senior supply chain manager 120
(P2) R&D manager 80
(P1) R&D manager 70
(P2) senior project manager 80
(P1) product planning master, former
R&D engineer
90
(P2) channel manager, former R&D
engineer
80
L1 1~49 customer service & customs manager 75
L2 50~99 port & customs manager 45
L3 1~49 operations manager 60
Logistics
500~999
100~499
1000+
Manufacturing
M1 printing
M2 automobile
M3
electronic
measurement
114 Yan Xin et al. / Procedia CIRP 83 (2019) 111–117
Author name / Procedia CIRP 00 (2019) 000–000 5
Top management support will not be explained in detail
here, but the level of sender and receiver should be emphasized.
Sometimes the effectiveness of knowledge sharing can be
determined, because if the corresponding knowledge was not
obtained, the shared person will not be able to perform his/her
job (L1). However, knowledge sharing sometimes is
subjective, and one of the difficulties in knowledge sharing is
control.
‘From the human’s perspective, it is very difficult to control
to what extent a person willing to share his/her knowledge
with others.’ (M2)
‘Knowledge sharing depends on person. The judgement for
the importance level of the same knowledge varies among
different people, and this is especially true for ordinary
R&D personnel. They do not share some knowledge only
because they presume the knowledge is too simple and treat
it as common sense, without considering the receivers’
background.’ (M3)
‘It is also very difficult to control to what extent a person
want to share others’ knowledge.’ (L1)
4.3. Knowledge reuse
All the interviewees agreed that knowledge reuse was
necessary, and would be even more important in the digital era.
‘Reuse of knowledge can increase efficiency'.’ (L1)
‘Knowledge reuse is a principle in our company, and this is
especially true for R&D. Knowledge reuse exists in all
R&D phases and activities. ’ (M2)
‘Most (of our work) is the reuse of knowledge. And with
advancement of informatization, the proportion will only
increase, and not decrease. This is because technology is
innovating gradually, or with some jumping, but customer
application is only a combination of different fields, or
cross functional, and most of them are knowledge reuse.’
(M3)
Some influencing factors of knowledge reuse were
mentioned by the interviewees. The R&D staff emphasized the
distance or familiarity of knowledge.
‘Even though there is existing code for a specific function
already, some software engineers still prefer writing the
codes by themselves to fulfill the function if they are
familiar with the knowledge required. However, they will
more likely choose to use the ready-made code if they feel
the knowledge required for coding is unknown or not
familiar with it.’ (M3)
The logistics staff emphasized the standardization, or
universal level of knowledge. The possibility of reuse would be
very low if the knowledge was only related to a very special
case.
‘The most reused knowledge will be the standard one, no
matter it is case, code, or process. Some knowledge is
rarely reused because of its particularity. It maybe only
used in one special case, and has no reference value for
other cases or processes. However, this kind of knowledge
was still stored in our company in case for future
reference.’ (L3)
However, it was also indicated that a balance is needed
between the reuse of exiting knowledge and the application of
new knowledge as this might be related to different innovation
orientation of the company, i.e. more radical oriented with less
knowledge reuse or more incremental oriented with more
knowledge reuse.
4.4. Impact of digitalization on knowledge management
Each interviewee talked about the impacts of digitalization
on their company, such as more convenient, more efficient,
better decision making, better cooperation, better business
environment, and less cost. With regards to the impact of
digitalization on knowledge management, some general points
can be summarized from the interviewees. With the increasing
amount of data available, safety and security of data protection
should be emphasized.
‘Data access must be set with strict permissions, even
within the company.’ (M3)
‘Informatization allows us to get the knowledge faster, but
it also means that others can more easily acquire the
knowledge we have. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure the
confidentiality of the corresponding knowledge.’ (M2)
Due to informatization, the range of knowledge required
will be broader and much of the knowledge from other fields
becomes necessary, and knowledge integration is very
important.
‘Customer needs are increasingly diverse, and many of
these demands come from the development of IoT.
Therefore, we need a lot of knowledge in different fields,
and we must integrate them organically into new product
development and implement new functions to meet these
new demands.’ (M3)
Related to the range of knowledge required, the requirement
for people also higher than before. A person with multi-
disciplinary and integrated knowledge will be more important
to the company (M3).
Although the impact of digitalization was emphasized by all
the participated companies, the impact varies across the
companies and also varies within one company. For instance,
digitalization was acknowledged to greatly improve the
efficiency of co-design and cooperation, but its impact on
distinguishing product fault was not obvious.
‘Sometimes the impact is not obvious. For instance when
looking for the cause of a product fault I always need to see
the physical product, as I need to distinguish whether the
fault was caused by the product itself or due to the
customer’s misuse.’ (M2).
4.5. Sustainability
Sustainability was not included in the original interview
guidelines. However, the R&D participants highly emphasized
this point. All the R&D staff clearly indicated that they
considered sustainability for the entire product lifecycle. For
instance,
‘Taking a book as an example, we will consider its entire
lifecycle, including how it will be dealt with after being read
by the last reader. How we can print it more reasonable
that not only meet the reader’s needs, but also minimize the
manufacturing cost, and at the same time be responsible for
4 Author name / Procedia CIRP 00 (2019) 000–000
All these knowledge mentioned by the interviewees were
considered as equally important by them. Only one exception
was that one R&D staff clearly indicated that customer
knowledge was the most important one when they conducting
SWOT analysis (M2). Also, only R&D staff indicated that if
they could get some knowledge more, they could achieve better
performance, but they could not get them currently (M1, M2,
and M3). For instance, some knowledge from other industries,
such as new materials, could help them accelerate the R&D
process and launch the product to market faster. In addition,
when searching for knowledge to solve a problem, there was a
prioritization of the order to decide where is the starting point,
including but not limited to own capability, familiarity level
with the knowledge and with the person, and geographical
location.
‘When we cannot solve the problem internally, external
knowledge sourcing turns to be as prior.’ (M1)
‘For instance, the searching priority is person or document
depending on the familiarity level with the knowledge and
with the person. When the knowledge is considered as
unfamiliar, searching or enquiring from person first is quite
common, even though there might be existing standard
repository there.’ (M3)
‘Of course we want to search within our department first
because we are sitting in the same office.’ (L3)
4.2. Knowledge sharing
All the interviewees believed that knowledge sharing was
important and necessary. Knowledge was shared within the
department, within the company, with branch office, with
supplier, with customer, and even with competitor, as shown in
Table 3.
Table 3. Knowledge sharing scope – share with whom
Knowledge sharing within the department and within the
company was mentioned by all the interviewees, indicating its
acknowledgement by both R&D and logistics staff and its
importance for them. Indicating by most interviewees,
knowledge was also shared with customers as they can develop
together, and grow together. However, only R&D staff shared
knowledge with branch office and supplier, and only logistics
staff shared knowledge with competitor. Especially, all the
R&D staff clearly indicated that they would not share their
knowledge with competitors because of confidentiality and
professional ethics. In contrast, the logistics staff mentioned
that they would like to share their successful experience with
their competitors as all of them were in the same system and
this kind of sharing was a win-win strategy. They even share
their knowledge with their competitors frequently and mutually
through unofficial social media group built by them. With
regards to branch office, the three interviewed logistics
companies were relatively small and do not have branches yet.
Knowledge sharing could be implemented through different
mode, as shown in Table 4. Most of them were quite common
modes and we will not explain them in detail here, such as
training, meeting, and intranet. The only point we want to
emphasize here is job rotation and social media, as only
logistics staff mentioned them. As we discussed earlier in the
previous section, professional background was a must for R&D
staff and this could not be shared simply through job rotation.
However, the basic knowledge required for a qualified logistics
staff could be learned through job rotation, and it was
especially important for knowledge sharing within the
department. Job rotation made everyone have a better
understanding of the whole process and lead to better personal
development and better team management (L1, L2). It ensured
each task could be completed by a backup person, which was
especially important for small logistics companies.
Table 4. Knowledge sharing modes
Table 5. Influencing factors of knowledge sharing
Factors affect knowledge sharing were also explored in the
interviews. The most important influencing factors are shown
in Table 5. It is quite clear that relevance of knowledge was the
most common factor as mentioned by most of the interviewees.
‘For instance the experience of dealing with non-standard
case sometimes is only for special case and the knowledge
is rarely relevant to other cases.’ (L3)
‘We will not share the product related knowledge to our
branches because it is not relevant, and only management
knowledge or some process knowledge will be shared.’
(M2)
Confidentiality was another common influencing factor, and
especially mentioned by all the R&D staff. In order to
strengthen confidentiality, one possible solution is knowledge
fragmentation.
‘For instance, the instruction for manufacturing process
was divided into several sections, and each person can only
access the section that he/she needs for his/her own job with
permission. All the individual sections are automatically
linked together when necessary, however only the relevant
people can access with certain permission.’ (M1)
L1 L2 L3 M1 M2 M3
confidentiality √ √ √ √
level of sender and receiver √ √ √
relevance of knowledge √ √ √ √ √
top management support √ √ √
L1 L2 L3 M1 M2 M3
branch office √
supplier √ √
customer √ √ √ √ √
competitor √ √ √
within the company √ √ √ √ √ √
within the department √ √ √ √ √ √
L1 L2 L3 M1 M2 M3
conference and exhibition √ √ √
internet √ √
intranet √ √ √ √ √
job rotation √ √
meeting √ √ √ √ √
training √ √ √ √ √ √
social media √ √
person to person √ √ √ √
Yan Xin et al. / Procedia CIRP 83 (2019) 111–117 115
Author name / Procedia CIRP 00 (2019) 000–000 5
Top management support will not be explained in detail
here, but the level of sender and receiver should be emphasized.
Sometimes the effectiveness of knowledge sharing can be
determined, because if the corresponding knowledge was not
obtained, the shared person will not be able to perform his/her
job (L1). However, knowledge sharing sometimes is
subjective, and one of the difficulties in knowledge sharing is
control.
‘From the human’s perspective, it is very difficult to control
to what extent a person willing to share his/her knowledge
with others.’ (M2)
‘Knowledge sharing depends on person. The judgement for
the importance level of the same knowledge varies among
different people, and this is especially true for ordinary
R&D personnel. They do not share some knowledge only
because they presume the knowledge is too simple and treat
it as common sense, without considering the receivers’
background.’ (M3)
‘It is also very difficult to control to what extent a person
want to share others’ knowledge.’ (L1)
4.3. Knowledge reuse
All the interviewees agreed that knowledge reuse was
necessary, and would be even more important in the digital era.
‘Reuse of knowledge can increase efficiency'.’ (L1)
‘Knowledge reuse is a principle in our company, and this is
especially true for R&D. Knowledge reuse exists in all
R&D phases and activities. ’ (M2)
‘Most (of our work) is the reuse of knowledge. And with
advancement of informatization, the proportion will only
increase, and not decrease. This is because technology is
innovating gradually, or with some jumping, but customer
application is only a combination of different fields, or
cross functional, and most of them are knowledge reuse.’
(M3)
Some influencing factors of knowledge reuse were
mentioned by the interviewees. The R&D staff emphasized the
distance or familiarity of knowledge.
‘Even though there is existing code for a specific function
already, some software engineers still prefer writing the
codes by themselves to fulfill the function if they are
familiar with the knowledge required. However, they will
more likely choose to use the ready-made code if they feel
the knowledge required for coding is unknown or not
familiar with it.’ (M3)
The logistics staff emphasized the standardization, or
universal level of knowledge. The possibility of reuse would be
very low if the knowledge was only related to a very special
case.
‘The most reused knowledge will be the standard one, no
matter it is case, code, or process. Some knowledge is
rarely reused because of its particularity. It maybe only
used in one special case, and has no reference value for
other cases or processes. However, this kind of knowledge
was still stored in our company in case for future
reference.’ (L3)
However, it was also indicated that a balance is needed
between the reuse of exiting knowledge and the application of
new knowledge as this might be related to different innovation
orientation of the company, i.e. more radical oriented with less
knowledge reuse or more incremental oriented with more
knowledge reuse.
4.4. Impact of digitalization on knowledge management
Each interviewee talked about the impacts of digitalization
on their company, such as more convenient, more efficient,
better decision making, better cooperation, better business
environment, and less cost. With regards to the impact of
digitalization on knowledge management, some general points
can be summarized from the interviewees. With the increasing
amount of data available, safety and security of data protection
should be emphasized.
‘Data access must be set with strict permissions, even
within the company.’ (M3)
‘Informatization allows us to get the knowledge faster, but
it also means that others can more easily acquire the
knowledge we have. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure the
confidentiality of the corresponding knowledge.’ (M2)
Due to informatization, the range of knowledge required
will be broader and much of the knowledge from other fields
becomes necessary, and knowledge integration is very
important.
‘Customer needs are increasingly diverse, and many of
these demands come from the development of IoT.
Therefore, we need a lot of knowledge in different fields,
and we must integrate them organically into new product
development and implement new functions to meet these
new demands.’ (M3)
Related to the range of knowledge required, the requirement
for people also higher than before. A person with multi-
disciplinary and integrated knowledge will be more important
to the company (M3).
Although the impact of digitalization was emphasized by all
the participated companies, the impact varies across the
companies and also varies within one company. For instance,
digitalization was acknowledged to greatly improve the
efficiency of co-design and cooperation, but its impact on
distinguishing product fault was not obvious.
‘Sometimes the impact is not obvious. For instance when
looking for the cause of a product fault I always need to see
the physical product, as I need to distinguish whether the
fault was caused by the product itself or due to the
customer’s misuse.’ (M2).
4.5. Sustainability
Sustainability was not included in the original interview
guidelines. However, the R&D participants highly emphasized
this point. All the R&D staff clearly indicated that they
considered sustainability for the entire product lifecycle. For
instance,
‘Taking a book as an example, we will consider its entire
lifecycle, including how it will be dealt with after being read
by the last reader. How we can print it more reasonable
that not only meet the reader’s needs, but also minimize the
manufacturing cost, and at the same time be responsible for
4 Author name / Procedia CIRP 00 (2019) 000–000
All these knowledge mentioned by the interviewees were
considered as equally important by them. Only one exception
was that one R&D staff clearly indicated that customer
knowledge was the most important one when they conducting
SWOT analysis (M2). Also, only R&D staff indicated that if
they could get some knowledge more, they could achieve better
performance, but they could not get them currently (M1, M2,
and M3). For instance, some knowledge from other industries,
such as new materials, could help them accelerate the R&D
process and launch the product to market faster. In addition,
when searching for knowledge to solve a problem, there was a
prioritization of the order to decide where is the starting point,
including but not limited to own capability, familiarity level
with the knowledge and with the person, and geographical
location.
‘When we cannot solve the problem internally, external
knowledge sourcing turns to be as prior.’ (M1)
‘For instance, the searching priority is person or document
depending on the familiarity level with the knowledge and
with the person. When the knowledge is considered as
unfamiliar, searching or enquiring from person first is quite
common, even though there might be existing standard
repository there.’ (M3)
‘Of course we want to search within our department first
because we are sitting in the same office.’ (L3)
4.2. Knowledge sharing
All the interviewees believed that knowledge sharing was
important and necessary. Knowledge was shared within the
department, within the company, with branch office, with
supplier, with customer, and even with competitor, as shown in
Table 3.
Table 3. Knowledge sharing scope – share with whom
Knowledge sharing within the department and within the
company was mentioned by all the interviewees, indicating its
acknowledgement by both R&D and logistics staff and its
importance for them. Indicating by most interviewees,
knowledge was also shared with customers as they can develop
together, and grow together. However, only R&D staff shared
knowledge with branch office and supplier, and only logistics
staff shared knowledge with competitor. Especially, all the
R&D staff clearly indicated that they would not share their
knowledge with competitors because of confidentiality and
professional ethics. In contrast, the logistics staff mentioned
that they would like to share their successful experience with
their competitors as all of them were in the same system and
this kind of sharing was a win-win strategy. They even share
their knowledge with their competitors frequently and mutually
through unofficial social media group built by them. With
regards to branch office, the three interviewed logistics
companies were relatively small and do not have branches yet.
Knowledge sharing could be implemented through different
mode, as shown in Table 4. Most of them were quite common
modes and we will not explain them in detail here, such as
training, meeting, and intranet. The only point we want to
emphasize here is job rotation and social media, as only
logistics staff mentioned them. As we discussed earlier in the
previous section, professional background was a must for R&D
staff and this could not be shared simply through job rotation.
However, the basic knowledge required for a qualified logistics
staff could be learned through job rotation, and it was
especially important for knowledge sharing within the
department. Job rotation made everyone have a better
understanding of the whole process and lead to better personal
development and better team management (L1, L2). It ensured
each task could be completed by a backup person, which was
especially important for small logistics companies.
Table 4. Knowledge sharing modes
Table 5. Influencing factors of knowledge sharing
Factors affect knowledge sharing were also explored in the
interviews. The most important influencing factors are shown
in Table 5. It is quite clear that relevance of knowledge was the
most common factor as mentioned by most of the interviewees.
‘For instance the experience of dealing with non-standard
case sometimes is only for special case and the knowledge
is rarely relevant to other cases.’ (L3)
‘We will not share the product related knowledge to our
branches because it is not relevant, and only management
knowledge or some process knowledge will be shared.’
(M2)
Confidentiality was another common influencing factor, and
especially mentioned by all the R&D staff. In order to
strengthen confidentiality, one possible solution is knowledge
fragmentation.
‘For instance, the instruction for manufacturing process
was divided into several sections, and each person can only
access the section that he/she needs for his/her own job with
permission. All the individual sections are automatically
linked together when necessary, however only the relevant
people can access with certain permission.’ (M1)
L1 L2 L3 M1 M2 M3
confidentiality √ √ √ √
level of sender and receiver √ √ √
relevance of knowledge √ √ √ √ √
top management support √ √ √
L1 L2 L3 M1 M2 M3
branch office √
supplier √ √
customer √ √ √ √ √
competitor √ √ √
within the company √ √ √ √ √ √
within the department √ √ √ √ √ √
L1 L2 L3 M1 M2 M3
conference and exhibition √ √ √
internet √ √
intranet √ √ √ √ √
job rotation √ √
meeting √ √ √ √ √
training √ √ √ √ √ √
social media √ √
person to person √ √ √ √
116 Yan Xin et al. / Procedia CIRP 83 (2019) 111–117
Author name / Procedia CIRP 00 (2019) 000–000 7
the PSS, and for the whole industry. Only standardized
documents could be shared and reused more, only standardized
interface could allow the efficient and effective data sharing
between different stakeholders, and only a widely recognized
standard that everyone must follow could realize the
knowledge sharing in the entire PSS.
There are some limitation in the current study, which should
be address in the future. First, the transcripts were only checked
by the interviewer due to time limitation. A double check
should be conducted for further analysis. Second, the
participated logistics companies in this study were relatively
small, which may not represent the full status quo of the
logistics industry. More interviews from larger logistics
companies would be helpful to increase the reliability of the
results. Last, R&D and logistics were the only sub-phases for
BOL and MOL, respectively. To have a better understanding
of the knowledge management practices in BOL and MOL,
interviews from other sub-phases would be necessary.
Appendix. Interview guidelines
Types/sources of knowledge used:
Which type of knowledge is most important/useful from
your point of view?
Which source of knowledge is most important/useful from
your point of view?
How do you get them? Are they difficult to get?
What other types/sources of knowledge are also needed
but you do not have?
If there is such knowledge, is it because of not knowing
where the knowledge is, or due to the difficulty of
accessing and acquiring it?
If you are informed where the knowledge is, do you know
how to access and acquire it?
Knowledge sharing:
Have you shared knowledge only within your department
or across the company? Why and how (for instance,
codification or personalization)?
Have you shared knowledge with other companies? If yes,
why and how?
Is knowledge sharing useful/effective in the current
situation? Why?
What factors have motivated you to share knowledge or
prevented you from sharing knowledge?
Which department/company is the one that you want to
share the most and least? Why?
Knowledge reuse:
Have you reused knowledge from previous
products/projects? Why and how?
Do you want to reuse more in the future? Why?
If you want to reuse more, what knowledge will be the
most important one from your point of view?
Impact of digitalization:
Has digitalization affected knowledge management in your
company? Why and how?
References
[1] Boehm M, Thomas O. Looking beyond the rim of one’s teacup: a
multidisciplinary literature review of Product-Service Systems in
Information Systems, Business Management, and Engineering & Design. J
Clean Prod 2013; 51:245-60.
[2] Tukker A. Product services for a resource-efficient and circular economy –
a review. J Clean Prod 2015; 97:76-91.
[3] Xin Y, Ojanen V, Huiskonen J. Empirical studies on product-service
systems: A systematic literature review. Procedia CIRP 2017; 64:399-404.
[4] Tang D, Zhu R, Tang J, Xu R, He R. Product design knowledge
management based on design structure matrix. Adv Eng Inform 2010;
24(2):159-66.
[5] Stark J. Product Lifecycle Management: 21st Century Paradigm for Product
Realisation. London: Springer; 2011.
[6] Cai H, Xu L D, Xu B, Xie C, Qin S, Jiang L. IoT-based configurable
information service platform for product lifecycle management. IEEE
Trans Ind Inf 2014; 10(2):1558-67.
[7] Bounfour A. The Management of Intangibles: The Organization’s Most
Valuable Asset. London, New York: Routledge; 2003.
[8] Zhang D, Hu D, Xu Y, Zhang H. A framework for design knowledge
management and reuse for Product-Service Systems in construction
machinery industry. Comput Ind 2012; 63:328-37.
[9] Baxter D, Roy R, Doultsinou A, Gao J, Kalta M. A knowledge management
framework to support product-service systems design. Int J Comp Integ
Manufg 2009; 22(12):1173-88.
[10] Goh YM, McMahon C. Improving reuse of in-service information capture
and feedback. J Manuf Tech Manag 2009; 20(5):626-39.
[11] Thompson G. Improving Maintainability and Reliability through Design.
UK: Professional Engineering Publishing; 1999.
[12] Durst S, Evangelista P. Exploring knowledge management practices in
third-party logistics service providers. VINE J Inform Knowl Manag Syst
2018; 48(2):162-77.
[13] Franceschini F, Galetto M, Pignatelli A, Varetto M. Outsourcing:
guidelines for a structured approach. Benchmarking: An International
Journal 2003, 10 (3): 246-260.
[14] Ameri F, Dutta D. Product lifecycle management: Closing the knowledge
loops. Comput Aided Des Appl 2005; 2(5):577-90.
[15] Xin Y, Ojanen V, Huiskonen J. Knowledge management in product-
service systems - A product lifecycle perspective. Procedia CIRP 2018;
73:203-09.
[16] Britten N. Qualitative research: qualitative interviews in medical research.
BMJ 1995; 311:251.
[17] Kvale S, Brinkmann S. InterViews. London: Sage; 2009.
[18] Heath G, Cameron E, Cummins C, Greenfield S, Pattison H, Kelly D,
Redwood S. Paediatric ‘care closer to home’: Stake-holder views and
barriers to implementation. Health Place 2012; 18:1068-73.
[19] Parkinson S, Eatough V, Holmes J, Stapley E, Midgley N. Framework
analysis: A worked example of a study exploring young people’s
experiences of depression. Qual Res Psychol 2016; 13(2):109-29.
[20] Chu CH, Luh YP, Li TC, Chen H. Economical green product design based
on simplified computer-aided product structure variation. Comput Ind
2009; 60(7): 485-500.
[201 Ahmed-Kristensen S, Vianello G. A model for reusing service knowledge
based on an empirical case. Res Eng Des 2014; 26(1):57-76.
[22] Lerch C, Gotsch M. Digitalized product-service systems in manufacturing
firms: A case study analysis. Res Technol Manage 2015; 58(5):45-52.
[23] Terzi S, Bouras A, Dutta D, Garetti M, Kiritsis D. Product lifecycle
management – from its history to its new role. Int J Prod Lifecycle Manage
2010; 4(4):360-89.
[24] Herterich MM, Uebernickel F, Brenner W. The impact of cyber-physical
systems on industrial services in manufacturing. Procedia CIRP 2015;
30:323-28.
6 Author name / Procedia CIRP 00 (2019) 000–000
the environment and society.’ (M1)
Consisting with existing literature [20], sustainability
started from design, including design of lighter and smaller
products to fulfill the same function, design for the more
environmental-friendly manufacturing process, and more
strictly raw material selection. For instance,
‘We tried to design smaller and lighter product, thus
reducing the amount of raw materials used. Of course, the
product must achieve the same function, and even better.’
(M2)
‘We tried to keep only the key functions and delete all those
functions that seems magic but in fact unnecessary. By
doing so, raw material consumption was reduced, and the
manufacturing process became simpler.’ (M3)
‘In the design of the production process, we must consider
making the production process as simple and easy as
possible, and also consider minimizing the pollution caused
in the production process.’ (M1)
‘Ingredients of each component need to be registered,
especially chemical ingredients. Only certified by the
system, this component can be used.’ (M2).
‘Supplier selection is very strict. Only the suppliers who
have the environmental certificate and fulfill the
governmental requirements will be selected by us.’ (M1)
Although sustainable development is indispensable, no case
company improves the design of their existing products by
tracking the processing record of the end-of-life products. In
fact, none of the case companies tracked the processing of their
EOL products. Similarly, no procedure or instructions exist in
the case companies to send the design information to recycler
to assist the end-of-life processing. Usually the products will
be handed over to a specialized company, and this was the
current situation for all manufacturing companies in our study.
‘Before handing over to the other companies, we will
provide various maintenance records that have been done
for the equipment, but that’s all.’ (M1)
In order to make sustainability more effective and feasible,
standardization and supervision were emphasized. For
instance,
‘It is better to put it into policy (but there is no existing one).
The process of tracking needs to be standardized in the
industry. Each company only needs to follow the
standards.’ (M3)
‘Sustainability is the responsibility of each stakeholder, but
for us, we mostly care about our own benefits and prefers
doing the things that we are familiar with. The
sustainability of an industry, or the whole society, should
be supervised by a specialized agency.’ (M1)
5. Conclusion and suggestions
The current study investigated the knowledge management
practices in different product lifecycle phases, i.e. BOL and
MOL, by conducting interviewees in manufacturing companies
and logistics companies. It was found that knowledge
requirements are quite different between these two phases.
Although both expertise and customer knowledge were
mentioned by both phases, their focuses were different. For
expertise, BOL was more focused on the knowledge related to
design and technology, whereas MOL was more focused on
policy. For customer knowledge, BOL was more focused on
customer needs and their using experience, whereas MOL was
more focused on the features of the customer’s product.
Besides these two types of knowledge, market knowledge was
used in BOL only, and industry knowledge used in MOL only.
Related to the types of knowledge used, the sources of the
knowledge also turned to be different. Conference &
exhibitions, learning-by-doing, and person-to-person were the
main sources for BOL, whereas government was the main
source for MOL. The importance and necessity of knowledge
sharing was also acknowledged by both BOL and MOL. They
shared knowledge within the department, within the company,
and the customer. However, BOL would not share with
competitor, and MOL would not share with supplier or branch
office. Training was the most commonly used knowledge
sharing mode for both BOL and MOL. However, job rotation
and social media were only used in MOL. Among the factors
affecting knowledge sharing, relevance of knowledge was the
most influencing one. Knowledge reuse was important for both
BOL and MOL, and it was even a principle for BOL. The more
familiar with the knowledge, the more knowledge will be
reused in BOL. The more standardized of the knowledge, the
more knowledge will be reused in MOL. In the digital era, the
broader and diversified knowledge base turns to be very
important. Safety and security of data protection was the most
concern in BOL. Although not listed in the interview guideline,
sustainability was highly emphasized in BOL. The
consideration for sustainability across the entire product
lifecycle and started from design. However, the exchange of
knowledge with EOL was still rare.
Based on the findings from the study, some managerial
implications are discussed for better knowledge management
in the digital era under PSS context.
Firstly, knowledge requirements in different PLC phases
should be clearly identified. Although the same type of
knowledge might be referred by both BOL and MOL staff, the
focus of their requirements were different [21]. Therefore, in
order to share knowledge more effectively and efficiently, i.e.
share the right knowledge to the right people, a correct
understanding of the knowledge requirements from both the
sender and receiver have to be identified.
Secondly, the importance of people have to be re-
emphasized, especially for BOL, or more specifically, for R&D
people [22, 23]. The characteristics and quality of people will
not only influence knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse
intention, but also knowledge sharing result. The importance of
learning-by-doing makes experience and tacit knowledge even
more important for R&D, which will lead to extremely costly
for company to replace a R&D expert
Thirdly, external collaboration should be strengthened [24].
More and more knowledge application was multi-disciplinary,
and across different industries. External collaboration is the
only feasible way to make the company keep competitive. If
the relevant knowledge could be acquired faster, the R&D
process could be accelerated and shorten the time to market.
Fourthly, but not lastly, standardization should be
advocated. Standardization will not only for documentation,
but also for the interface between different stakeholders along
Yan Xin et al. / Procedia CIRP 83 (2019) 111–117 117
Author name / Procedia CIRP 00 (2019) 000–000 7
the PSS, and for the whole industry. Only standardized
documents could be shared and reused more, only standardized
interface could allow the efficient and effective data sharing
between different stakeholders, and only a widely recognized
standard that everyone must follow could realize the
knowledge sharing in the entire PSS.
There are some limitation in the current study, which should
be address in the future. First, the transcripts were only checked
by the interviewer due to time limitation. A double check
should be conducted for further analysis. Second, the
participated logistics companies in this study were relatively
small, which may not represent the full status quo of the
logistics industry. More interviews from larger logistics
companies would be helpful to increase the reliability of the
results. Last, R&D and logistics were the only sub-phases for
BOL and MOL, respectively. To have a better understanding
of the knowledge management practices in BOL and MOL,
interviews from other sub-phases would be necessary.
Appendix. Interview guidelines
Types/sources of knowledge used:
Which type of knowledge is most important/useful from
your point of view?
Which source of knowledge is most important/useful from
your point of view?
How do you get them? Are they difficult to get?
What other types/sources of knowledge are also needed
but you do not have?
If there is such knowledge, is it because of not knowing
where the knowledge is, or due to the difficulty of
accessing and acquiring it?
If you are informed where the knowledge is, do you know
how to access and acquire it?
Knowledge sharing:
Have you shared knowledge only within your department
or across the company? Why and how (for instance,
codification or personalization)?
Have you shared knowledge with other companies? If yes,
why and how?
Is knowledge sharing useful/effective in the current
situation? Why?
What factors have motivated you to share knowledge or
prevented you from sharing knowledge?
Which department/company is the one that you want to
share the most and least? Why?
Knowledge reuse:
Have you reused knowledge from previous
products/projects? Why and how?
Do you want to reuse more in the future? Why?
If you want to reuse more, what knowledge will be the
most important one from your point of view?
Impact of digitalization:
Has digitalization affected knowledge management in your
company? Why and how?
References
[1] Boehm M, Thomas O. Looking beyond the rim of one’s teacup: a
multidisciplinary literature review of Product-Service Systems in
Information Systems, Business Management, and Engineering & Design. J
Clean Prod 2013; 51:245-60.
[2] Tukker A. Product services for a resource-efficient and circular economy –
a review. J Clean Prod 2015; 97:76-91.
[3] Xin Y, Ojanen V, Huiskonen J. Empirical studies on product-service
systems: A systematic literature review. Procedia CIRP 2017; 64:399-404.
[4] Tang D, Zhu R, Tang J, Xu R, He R. Product design knowledge
management based on design structure matrix. Adv Eng Inform 2010;
24(2):159-66.
[5] Stark J. Product Lifecycle Management: 21st Century Paradigm for Product
Realisation. London: Springer; 2011.
[6] Cai H, Xu L D, Xu B, Xie C, Qin S, Jiang L. IoT-based configurable
information service platform for product lifecycle management. IEEE
Trans Ind Inf 2014; 10(2):1558-67.
[7] Bounfour A. The Management of Intangibles: The Organization’s Most
Valuable Asset. London, New York: Routledge; 2003.
[8] Zhang D, Hu D, Xu Y, Zhang H. A framework for design knowledge
management and reuse for Product-Service Systems in construction
machinery industry. Comput Ind 2012; 63:328-37.
[9] Baxter D, Roy R, Doultsinou A, Gao J, Kalta M. A knowledge management
framework to support product-service systems design. Int J Comp Integ
Manufg 2009; 22(12):1173-88.
[10] Goh YM, McMahon C. Improving reuse of in-service information capture
and feedback. J Manuf Tech Manag 2009; 20(5):626-39.
[11] Thompson G. Improving Maintainability and Reliability through Design.
UK: Professional Engineering Publishing; 1999.
[12] Durst S, Evangelista P. Exploring knowledge management practices in
third-party logistics service providers. VINE J Inform Knowl Manag Syst
2018; 48(2):162-77.
[13] Franceschini F, Galetto M, Pignatelli A, Varetto M. Outsourcing:
guidelines for a structured approach. Benchmarking: An International
Journal 2003, 10 (3): 246-260.
[14] Ameri F, Dutta D. Product lifecycle management: Closing the knowledge
loops. Comput Aided Des Appl 2005; 2(5):577-90.
[15] Xin Y, Ojanen V, Huiskonen J. Knowledge management in product-
service systems - A product lifecycle perspective. Procedia CIRP 2018;
73:203-09.
[16] Britten N. Qualitative research: qualitative interviews in medical research.
BMJ 1995; 311:251.
[17] Kvale S, Brinkmann S. InterViews. London: Sage; 2009.
[18] Heath G, Cameron E, Cummins C, Greenfield S, Pattison H, Kelly D,
Redwood S. Paediatric ‘care closer to home’: Stake-holder views and
barriers to implementation. Health Place 2012; 18:1068-73.
[19] Parkinson S, Eatough V, Holmes J, Stapley E, Midgley N. Framework
analysis: A worked example of a study exploring young people’s
experiences of depression. Qual Res Psychol 2016; 13(2):109-29.
[20] Chu CH, Luh YP, Li TC, Chen H. Economical green product design based
on simplified computer-aided product structure variation. Comput Ind
2009; 60(7): 485-500.
[201 Ahmed-Kristensen S, Vianello G. A model for reusing service knowledge
based on an empirical case. Res Eng Des 2014; 26(1):57-76.
[22] Lerch C, Gotsch M. Digitalized product-service systems in manufacturing
firms: A case study analysis. Res Technol Manage 2015; 58(5):45-52.
[23] Terzi S, Bouras A, Dutta D, Garetti M, Kiritsis D. Product lifecycle
management – from its history to its new role. Int J Prod Lifecycle Manage
2010; 4(4):360-89.
[24] Herterich MM, Uebernickel F, Brenner W. The impact of cyber-physical
systems on industrial services in manufacturing. Procedia CIRP 2015;
30:323-28.
6 Author name / Procedia CIRP 00 (2019) 000–000
the environment and society.’ (M1)
Consisting with existing literature [20], sustainability
started from design, including design of lighter and smaller
products to fulfill the same function, design for the more
environmental-friendly manufacturing process, and more
strictly raw material selection. For instance,
‘We tried to design smaller and lighter product, thus
reducing the amount of raw materials used. Of course, the
product must achieve the same function, and even better.’
(M2)
‘We tried to keep only the key functions and delete all those
functions that seems magic but in fact unnecessary. By
doing so, raw material consumption was reduced, and the
manufacturing process became simpler.’ (M3)
‘In the design of the production process, we must consider
making the production process as simple and easy as
possible, and also consider minimizing the pollution caused
in the production process.’ (M1)
‘Ingredients of each component need to be registered,
especially chemical ingredients. Only certified by the
system, this component can be used.’ (M2).
‘Supplier selection is very strict. Only the suppliers who
have the environmental certificate and fulfill the
governmental requirements will be selected by us.’ (M1)
Although sustainable development is indispensable, no case
company improves the design of their existing products by
tracking the processing record of the end-of-life products. In
fact, none of the case companies tracked the processing of their
EOL products. Similarly, no procedure or instructions exist in
the case companies to send the design information to recycler
to assist the end-of-life processing. Usually the products will
be handed over to a specialized company, and this was the
current situation for all manufacturing companies in our study.
‘Before handing over to the other companies, we will
provide various maintenance records that have been done
for the equipment, but that’s all.’ (M1)
In order to make sustainability more effective and feasible,
standardization and supervision were emphasized. For
instance,
‘It is better to put it into policy (but there is no existing one).
The process of tracking needs to be standardized in the
industry. Each company only needs to follow the
standards.’ (M3)
‘Sustainability is the responsibility of each stakeholder, but
for us, we mostly care about our own benefits and prefers
doing the things that we are familiar with. The
sustainability of an industry, or the whole society, should
be supervised by a specialized agency.’ (M1)
5. Conclusion and suggestions
The current study investigated the knowledge management
practices in different product lifecycle phases, i.e. BOL and
MOL, by conducting interviewees in manufacturing companies
and logistics companies. It was found that knowledge
requirements are quite different between these two phases.
Although both expertise and customer knowledge were
mentioned by both phases, their focuses were different. For
expertise, BOL was more focused on the knowledge related to
design and technology, whereas MOL was more focused on
policy. For customer knowledge, BOL was more focused on
customer needs and their using experience, whereas MOL was
more focused on the features of the customer’s product.
Besides these two types of knowledge, market knowledge was
used in BOL only, and industry knowledge used in MOL only.
Related to the types of knowledge used, the sources of the
knowledge also turned to be different. Conference &
exhibitions, learning-by-doing, and person-to-person were the
main sources for BOL, whereas government was the main
source for MOL. The importance and necessity of knowledge
sharing was also acknowledged by both BOL and MOL. They
shared knowledge within the department, within the company,
and the customer. However, BOL would not share with
competitor, and MOL would not share with supplier or branch
office. Training was the most commonly used knowledge
sharing mode for both BOL and MOL. However, job rotation
and social media were only used in MOL. Among the factors
affecting knowledge sharing, relevance of knowledge was the
most influencing one. Knowledge reuse was important for both
BOL and MOL, and it was even a principle for BOL. The more
familiar with the knowledge, the more knowledge will be
reused in BOL. The more standardized of the knowledge, the
more knowledge will be reused in MOL. In the digital era, the
broader and diversified knowledge base turns to be very
important. Safety and security of data protection was the most
concern in BOL. Although not listed in the interview guideline,
sustainability was highly emphasized in BOL. The
consideration for sustainability across the entire product
lifecycle and started from design. However, the exchange of
knowledge with EOL was still rare.
Based on the findings from the study, some managerial
implications are discussed for better knowledge management
in the digital era under PSS context.
Firstly, knowledge requirements in different PLC phases
should be clearly identified. Although the same type of
knowledge might be referred by both BOL and MOL staff, the
focus of their requirements were different [21]. Therefore, in
order to share knowledge more effectively and efficiently, i.e.
share the right knowledge to the right people, a correct
understanding of the knowledge requirements from both the
sender and receiver have to be identified.
Secondly, the importance of people have to be re-
emphasized, especially for BOL, or more specifically, for R&D
people [22, 23]. The characteristics and quality of people will
not only influence knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse
intention, but also knowledge sharing result. The importance of
learning-by-doing makes experience and tacit knowledge even
more important for R&D, which will lead to extremely costly
for company to replace a R&D expert
Thirdly, external collaboration should be strengthened [24].
More and more knowledge application was multi-disciplinary,
and across different industries. External collaboration is the
only feasible way to make the company keep competitive. If
the relevant knowledge could be acquired faster, the R&D
process could be accelerated and shorten the time to market.
Fourthly, but not lastly, standardization should be
advocated. Standardization will not only for documentation,
but also for the interface between different stakeholders along
Publication V
Xin, Y., Ojanen, V., and Huiskonen, J.
Sharing and reusing knowledge for innovation and competitiveness in PSS
Reprinted with permission from
Proceedings of the XXXI ISPIM Innovation Conference – Innovating Our Common Future
7-10 June 2020. Berlin, Germany
© 2020, ISPIM
This paper was presented at The ISPIM Innovation Conference – Innovating Our Common Future,
Berlin, Germany on 7-10 June 2020.
1
Sharing and reusing knowledge for innovation and
competitiveness in PSS
Yan Xin*
LUT University, School of Engineering Science, Yliopistonkatu 34,
53850, Lappeenranta, Finland.
E-mail: yan.xin@lut.fi
Ville Ojanen
LUT University, School of Engineering Science, Yliopistonkatu 34,
53850, Lappeenranta, Finland.
E-mail: ville.ojanen@lut.fi
Janne Huiskonen
LUT University, School of Engineering Science, Yliopistonkatu 34,
53850, Lappeenranta, Finland.
E-mail: janne.huiskonen@lut.fi
* Corresponding author
Abstract: Through twenty-seven semi-structured interviews in eleven
companies and supplementary questionnaire survey responses by the
interviewees, the current study investigates knowledge used, knowledge
sharing (focusing on sender), and knowledge reuse (focusing on receiver) from
product lifecycle perspective in the product-service systems context. Both
beginning-of-life (represented by R&D, purchasing, and production) and
middle-of-life (represented by logistics, customer service, and sales) phases
were our focus. The impact of digitalization on knowledge management was
also an aspect explored in this study. Similarities and differences were found
between and within the two phases. Our finding suggested that in order to be
competitive in the digital era, a consistent understanding of knowledge
requirement from both sender and receiver should be identified, a match
between the knowledge shared/sourced and the mechanism used should be
made, a culture/mechanism to retain competent people in the company should
be emphasized, and investment on knowledge repository should be
strengthened.
Keywords: knowledge sharing; knowledge reuse; product lifecycle;
digitalization; product-service systems
1 Introduction
How to efficiently lead and manage innovations and transform the creative ideas to
business and societal value has captivated the attention of researchers and managers
This paper was presented at The ISPIM Innovation Conference – Innovating Our Common Future,
Berlin, Germany on 7-10 June 2020.
2
already for decades. Currently, we are witnessing the era, when the contemporary
phenomena like sustainability-oriented innovations (Adams et al., 2016), product-service
systems (PSS) (Tukker, 2015), emerging digital technologies and ecosystems (Clarysse et
al., 2014) build the foundation for potentially drastic changes in innovation management.
Along with this trend, the basis of competition shifts from the functionality of a discrete
product to the performance of the broader product system, and the single firm is only one
of the actors. The requirements of integrating diverse knowledge relating to economic,
social and environmental considerations across the entire product lifecycle (PLC)
inherently brings complexity to innovation, and makes knowledge and its management
even more crucial and challenging to the company (Adams et al., 2016). Although
companies in various industries have invested in KM initiatives and gained benefits,
many companies are still struggling with reaping the value from KM (Rao, 2012). In
order to be competitive, taking an appropriate knowledge management strategy/practice
across the entire PLC phases become a necessity.
Being identified as the key process for successful knowledge management (KM),
knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse (Bemret and Bennetz, 2003) have been
investigated in research articles for decades. However, to our knowledge, few of them
concern KM in the PSS context through the PLC perspective. Especially, if PLC was
divided into beginning-of-life (BOL), middle-of-life (MOL), and end-of-life (EOL) phase
(Stark, 2011), the existing studies were mainly focused on BOL phase, whereas the
studies on MOL phase were not comprehensive (Cai et al., 2014). From the PSS
providers’ perspective, they must support their customers and ensure the usefulness of
their product along the PLC. Therefore, investigating KM practice further in MOL phase
would not only enrich the PSS research, but also refine the KM research.
In response to the discussion above, coupled with the fact that the majority studies in
the existing PSS literature were conducted through the single case study method (Tukker,
2015), the current study aims at investigating knowledge sharing and reuse under the PSS
context from PLC perspective through the multiple case study method. In particular, both
BOL and MOL phases will be included. Under the ongoing trend of digitalization, a
proliferation of technologies was adopted to support communication (Treem and
Leonardi, 2012) and shape the sharing and reuse behavior. Considering the opportunities
and challenges brought by the digitalization transformation, the impact of digitalization
on KM will be investigated as well. Therefore, the corresponding research questions
addressed in this study are: What are the main knowledge requirements for PSS providers
in different PLC phases? What are the knowledge sharing and reuse strategies/practices
in that context? How does digitalization influence the above-mentioned
strategies/practices? Are the answers of the three questions raised above similar or
different in different PLC phases? By replying to these questions, we intend to
complement the current KM theory through PLC perspective and hope that companies
can have a better understanding on their own knowledge sharing/reuse status quo, and
keep innovative and competitive through better KM strategies.
Theoretical background will be explained in section 2. Research design and
methodology will be described in section 3. Section 4 will present the data analysis
results and discussion. Finally, section 5 will discuss the conclusion and suggestions.
2 Theoretical background
Knowledge sharing, reuse, and transfer
‘Knowledge is of little value if not supplied to the right people at the right time’ (Teece,
2000, p. 38). Many discussions around KM have focused on how knowledge is
transferred, shared, and used (reused) in the company, which are broadly concerning the
movement of knowledge, but with different emphasis, from different perspectives, and
intertwined with each other (Majchrzak et al., 2004; Szulanski, 1996). Knowledge
transfer emphasizes the efficacy of knowledge movement from the sender/producer to the
receiver/consumer between the predetermined sender and receiver, knowledge sharing
emphasizes the sender’s contribution to knowledge from a supplier’s perspective,
whereas knowledge reuse focuses on the demand of knowledge from a consumer’s
perspective ( Gray and Meister, 2004; Majchrzak et al., 2004; Szulanski, 1996). In
addition, knowledge can be used/reused without being shared or transferred when the re-
user uses his/her own knowledge. To narrow down the research focus in the current
study, knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse will be emphasized, as knowledge
transfer can be treated as one stage in both knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse
processes and covered by both processes (Majchrzak et al., 2004; Markus, 2001;
Szulanski, 2000). To make the study clearer, by considering the different emphasis of the
above-mentioned knowledge movement, the definition of knowledge sharing, knowledge
reuse, and knowledge transfer used are described as follow:
• Knowledge sharing is the process in which the sender contributes his/her knowledge
to the receiver and initiate the knowledge movement from the sender to the receiver.
The focal actor is the knowledge sender.
• Knowledge reuse is the process in which the receiver seeks and acquires the
knowledge from the sender, initiates the knowledge movement from the sender to the
receiver and applies the knowledge received. The focal actor is the potential
knowledge receiver.
• Knowledge transfer is the knowledge movement from the sender to the receiver. The
focus is the mechanism used to facilitate the knowledge movement.
Knowledge management in PSS context from PLC perspective
Targeting at sustainable development, companies should consider the entire PLC, and
this applies to KM as well. In general, PLC can be categorized into three mains phases
including beginning-of-life (BOL), middle-of-life (MOL), and end-of-life (EOL) (Stark,
2011). In BOL phase, the product is within the manufacturing firm’s boundaries. Design
and manufacturing stages are included to generate the product concept and realize the
product physically. MOL phase consists of product distribution (i.e. external logistics),
use (consumption), and support (i.e. repair and maintenance). It implies that the product
is out of the manufacturing firm’s boundaries and used by the customer. When the users’
needs cannot be satisfied by the product, it turns to EOL phase, which involves reuse,
recycling, remanufacturing, and disposal.
This paper was presented at The ISPIM Innovation Conference – Innovating Our Common Future,
Berlin, Germany on 7-10 June 2020.
4
In the PSS context, various stakeholders play their roles along the PLC phases with
different KM requirements and strategies. However, to our knowledge, most existing
literature on knowledge sharing and reuse focuses on BOL phase (Baxter et al., 2009),
and rarely explore them in MOL phase empirically (Cai et al., 2014; Durst et al., 2018).
To streamline the value chains, manufacturing companies are currently in a trend of
outsourcing their logistics (Franceschini et al., 2003), which implies that external
logistics could be fulfilled not only by the logistics department in the manufacturing
firms, but also by the third-party logistics companies. Therefore, in order to have a better
understanding of knowledge sharing and reuse in both BOL and MOL phases, both
manufacturing and logistic companies will be our targeting companies in the PSS
context. In particular, in BOL phase, R&D will represent design, and purchasing and
production (normally under the umbrella of supply chain) will represent manufacturing.
In MOL phase, logistics (both logistics company and logistic department) will be the
representative of external logistics, and customer service represent support. For the
majority manufacturing companies, the sales department is indispensable. Because they
communicate closely with customers and are familiar with the use of products on the
customer’s side, the sales department is included in this study and categorized under the
MOL stage.
Impact of digitalization on knowledge sharing and reuse
Digitalization has been one of the major changes during the past decades, which has not
only had influence on the means of communication, but also enabled access to enormous
information sources (Kankanhalli et al., 2005a and 2005b). For instance, ICT facilitates
knowledge sharing through internet and facilitates knowledge seeking through search
engines (Hislop, 2005). Social media changed the way of sharing and collaboration and
has been viewed as an informal KM tool Von Krogh, 2012) because it helps the potential
knowledge receivers to be aware of the knowledge possessed by the knowledge sender
(Leonardi et al., 2013).
3 Research design and methodology
By considering the objectives of this research, the nature of the research questions, and
the lack of extensive theories in the research field, qualitative case study methodology
was adopted as the dominant methodology. In particular, semi-structured interviews were
used for data collection because they allow immediately clarification of the terminology
involved and circumventing misunderstandings (Parkhe, 1993). Quantitative survey was
adopted as a supplementary method to get more information. The sample size was limited
to the number of cases as the questionnaire was answered by the interviewees right after
each interview. Therefore, only descriptive results from the survey were used.
Key informants were selected purposefully by considering their relevance with the
research topic, and they were managers in their own functional department who are
familiar with KM practices in the department and in the company. Before conducting the
interview, invitation was sent to the participants through email to outline the research
objective and how the collected data would be used. Informed consent from each
participant was obtained to fulfill the ethical research practice standards (Heath et al.,
2012).
Between June and October 2018, a total number of twenty-nine face-to-face on-site
interviews were conducted in seven manufacturing companies and four logistics
companies in Beijing and Tianjin, China. Different PLC phases and sub-phases were
represented by the relevant functional departments in the company in the current study, as
indicated before. No matter which industry the company is in, the functional departments
perform the similar responsibilities. Therefore, industry difference was not taken into
consideration.
The length of each interview ranged from 40 to 120 minutes. The list of companies
and participants is presents in Table 1. Questions around knowledge management
strategies/practices in the department/company were asked during the interviews,
including types of knowledge used, knowledge sharing/reuse practice, and the impact of
digitalization on the above-mentioned topics. All the interviews were digitally recorded
upon permission, except for the interviews in two manufacturing companies. Right after
each interview, a short questionnaire survey was filled in the interviewee to rate the IT
application in the company, which would be used to supplement the information on
digitalization in the company.
Table 1 Summary of the companies and the participants
Company Industry Size * Participant Job title PLC phase PLC sub-phase
P1 senior supply chain manager BOL Purchasing (PUR)
P2 R&D manager BOL R&D (RD)
P3 R&D manager BOL R&D (RD)
P4 senior R&D project manager BOL R&D (RD)
P5 procurement manager BOL Purchasing (PUR)
P6 production manager BOL Production (PD)
P7 customer service/quality manager MOL Customer service (CS)
P8 procurement manager BOL Purchasing (PUR)
P9 product quality manager BOL Production (PD)
P10 production manager BOL Production (PD)
P11 logistics and customs manager MOL Logistics (LOG)
P12 customer service manager MOL Customer service (CS)
P13 senior sales manager MOL Sales (SAL)
P14 production manager BOL Production (PD)
P15 logistics and customs manager MOL Logistics (LOG)
P16 procurement manager BOL Purchasing (PUR)
P17 sales manager MOL Sales (SAL)
P18 customer service manager MOL Customer service (CS)
chief information officer
P19 product planning master, former R&D engineer BOL R&D (RD)
P20 channel manager, former R&D engineer MOL Sales (SAL)
CEO
P21 Procurement manager BOL Purchasing (PUR)
P22 R&D manager BOL R&D (RD)
P23 R&D manager BOL R&D (RD)
C8 logistics small P24 customer service & customs manager MOL Logistics (LOG)
C9 logistics medium P25 port & customs manager MOL Logistics (LOG)
C10 logistics small P26 operations manager MOL Logistics (LOG)
C11 logistics small P27 customer service & customs manager MOL Logistics (LOG)
C1 printing large
C2 automobile large
C3
consumer
electronics large
C4 chemical large
C7 biocheminstry medium
* Size was determined using EU classification based on persons employed in the company: fewer than 10 →micro enterprises; 10-49 → small enterprises;
50-249 → medium-sized enterprises; 250 or more →large enterprises (Eurostat, 2016)
C5
electronics
components large
C6
electronic
measurement large
This paper was presented at The ISPIM Innovation Conference – Innovating Our Common Future,
Berlin, Germany on 7-10 June 2020.
6
The digital records were fully transcribed verbatim by the interviewer. Data from the
semi-structured interviews were analyzed by the thematic coding and analysis methods
and NVivo was used (Version 12). The initial nodes in NVivo were created based on the
main themes in the research questions, i.e. knowledge requirements, knowledge
sharing/reuse, and impact of digitalization. Data from the questionnaire survey were
analyzed by using IBM SPSS (Version 26). Transcripts from two interviewees and the
corresponding questionnaire survey from them were excluded in the above analysis due
to their position (one was chief information officer in C5, and the other one was chief
executive officer in C7). Rather, they served as supplementary materials to confirm the
findings from other interviews and was a kind of triangulation to increase the credibility
of the study.
4 Results and discussion
In this section, data analysis results from both the semi-structured interviews and the
questionnaire survey will be presented and discussed following the interview guidelines.
Knowledge requirements
Different types of knowledge were used/required in PLC sub-phases (as shown in Table
2).
Table 2 Types of knowledge used/required in in PLC sub-phases
R&D Purchasing Production Logistics Customer service Sales
expertise P P P P P P
process/procedure knowledge P P P P P P
product knowledge P P P P P P
production knowledge P P P
supplier knowledge P P P
customer knowledge P P P P
market knowledge P P
industry knowledge P
Expertise, process/procedure knowledge, and product knowledge were used by all PLC
sub-phases. The use of process/procedure knowledge in all the PLC sub-phases
interviewed implies the importance of standardization and systemization of work, no
matter in which PLC sub-phases. Even in the most knowledge intensive R&D, it was also
very important to guarantee the quality by using R&D standard operating procedure
(C7/P22).
Although all sub-phases used expertise and product knowledge, their focus were not
the same. Regarding expertise, the focus of R&D were design, development, and
technology, the focus of production were production management, product quality
control, and equipment maintenance, whereas the focus of logistics was more related to
transportation, import & export, and policy & legal issues. With regards to product
knowledge, the focus of R&D was how to realize the functions of the product, the focus
of purchasing was the detailed requirement of the product, the focus of production was
the production process of the product, the focus of the logistics was the characteristics of
the product, and the focus of the sales was the performance and advantages of the
product. Even in the same sub-phase, the requirement for the same type of knowledge is
different according to the job position, or the responsibility.
“All this expertise related knowledge is important for us. However, according
to job position, the emphasis is different, and the degree of importance will be
different.” (C5/P15)
Production knowledge and supplier knowledge were only used during the BOL phase,
whereas industry knowledge was mentioned only by logistics. All the sub-phases in MOL
use customer knowledge, and in BOL only R&D uses it. This difference derived from
their different responsibilities and focuses of work. The BOL phase focuses on how to
design, develop and realize the physical product, which requires comprehensive
knowledge of product and supplier. In contrast, the MOL phase focuses on how to ensure
satisfying customers’ requirements by using the product, which requires in-depth
understanding of the customers. Even within MOL phase, focuses of customer
knowledge were different. Logistics focuses on the customers’ requirement about
delivery time and delivery modes, customer service focuses on the customers’ usage
experience, and sales focuses on the customers’ requirement and expectation of the
product performance. It should be emphasized that customer knowledge is also important
for R&D, which is the only sub-phase uses that knowledge in BOL in the companies
interviewed. R&D people not only paid attention to customer needs for the purpose of
product development, but also concerned the customers’ feedback so as to improve the
product (C3/P12).
Market knowledge was used in R&D and sales with different objectives. In R&D, it
was used to answer what new products should be developed to satisfy customer needs or
create new customer needs. Therefore, the focuses were market trend, technology trend,
and competitors’ information etc. In sales, it was used to answer how to satisfy customer
needs with the existing products. Therefore, the focuses were the historical sales of their
own products and the competitors’ products. With regards to industry knowledge
required by logistics, the focus was on knowing the industry standard of the product to
better arrange the transportation (C10/P26).
Both expertise and process/procedure knowledge were considered as equally
important by all the interviewees, although people in different position (division of labor)
may have different focuses for these two types of knowledge (C1/P2, C4/P13). Except for
these, the importance of other knowledge was different according to the PLC sub-phases.
For instance, production people considered production knowledge as the most important
one, whereas the customer service people took customer knowledge as the most
important one. In addition, the importance of different types of knowledge changed
according to the transition of the company’s strategy from being as a manufacturer to a
PSS provider.
“With the transition of the company from selling product to selling solution, the
importance of different types of knowledge changed accordingly. The
This paper was presented at The ISPIM Innovation Conference – Innovating Our Common Future,
Berlin, Germany on 7-10 June 2020.
8
importance level changed from product knowledge first to customer knowledge
first.” (C6/P20)
Knowledge sharing
Knowledge sharing was important and necessary, which was clearly emphasized by all
the interviewees. Knowledge was not only shared with the same department (i.e. within
one PLC sub-phase), within the company (i.e. across different PLC sub-phases), but also
with external companies (i.e. across different PLC sub-phases and across the company’s
boundary). The scope of knowledge sharing from each PLC sub-phases is shown in Table
3.
Table 3 Knowledge sharing scope (share with whom) and mechanism
R&D Purchasing Production Logistics Customer service Sales
R&D
training,
mentor,
meeting,
public folder,
intranet by permission
meeting,
informal discussion,
email,
intranet by permission
e-flow,
email,
phone,
meeting
on-site discussion
e-flow,
regular report
email,
phone,
informal discussion
Purchasing
meeting,
training
on-site discussion,
informal discussion,
email,
intranet by permission
training,
mentor,
meeting,
public folder,
intranet by permission
e-flow,
email,
phone,
meeting
on-site discussion,
regular report
Production
meeting,
training
on-site discussion,
informal discussion,
email,
intranet by permission
e-flow,
email,
meeting
training,
mentor,
meeting,
public folder,
intranet by permission
e-flow,
email
e-flow,
regular report,
email,
phone
Logistics
e-flow,
email
training,
mentor,
meeting,
social media,
job rotation,
public folder,
intranet by permission
Customer
service
meeting,
training,
informal discussion,
email,
intranet by permission
training,
mentor,
meeting,
public folder,
intranet by permission
Sales
meeting,
training,
informal discussion,
on-site discusison,
email,
intranet by permission
training,
mentor,
meeting,
public folder,
intranet by permission
Other branches
intranet by permission,
email,
video conference
intranet by permission,
email,
regular report
video conference
Supplier
supplier training,
supplier visit,
meeting,
email (on demand),
project team
email,
phone,
e-flow
supplier visit
email,
report
Customer
customer visit,
face-to-face,
email,
project team
email,
report,
phone
report,
email,
phone,
informal discussion
customer visit (mutual)
customer training
document
Other
email,
report,
phone,
social media,
informal discussion
BOL MOL
B
O
L
M
O
L
E
x
te
rn
a
l
K
n
o
w
led
g
e sh
a
rin
g
w
ith
...
All the interviewees indicated that they shared knowledge within the department and
within the company, but with different scopes and degree. It implies that the importance
of knowledge sharing had been acknowledged by all PLC sub-phases interviewed. With
regards to scope, R&D shared knowledge with all the PLC sub-phases, except logistics.
R&D also shared knowledge with supplier and customers frequently for innovation
(C1/P2).
“With the development of product, R&D turns to know the suppliers very well.
When some new raw materials are needed, R&D may know which supplier is
more suitable and contact the supplier directly, rather than through purchasing
department. They even help the suppliers design, so that suppliers can produce
the new raw materials faster and better to fulfill our company’s requirements
for new product development.” (C3/P8)
In contrast to R&D, the other two sub-phases in BOL mostly shared knowledge within
BOL phase, and rarely with MOL phase. The only exception was production’s
knowledge sharing with logistics. However, this sharing was automatic through the e-
flow in the company, rather than actively initiated by production. Different from the
knowledge sharing scope for the BOL sub-phases, the MOL sub-phases mostly shared
knowledge with BOL phase, rather than shared within MOL. This pattern of knowledge
sharing scope and direction reflects the relationship between the different PLC sub-
phases. BOL sub-phases needs to cooperate closely with each other to ensure that
production was completed on time and on quality. In contrast, the responsibilities of each
MOL sub-phase were relatively independent. They cooperated with BOL to smooth the
operation of the company.
With regards to the mechanism, i.e. the knowledge transfer mechanism defined in this
study, most of them were commonly used by the interviewees, such as training, meeting,
public folder, intranet, and e-flow, etc., as shown in Table 3. Among all the mechanisms,
mentor was commonly used by all the PLC sub-phases when sharing knowledge within
the same sub-phase only. This is particularly important for sharing knowledge with new
employees (C6/P20). In logistics, two special mechanisms, i.e. job rotation and social
media (i.e. WeChat) were used, which was not mentioned by other sub-phases. This
could be explained by the characteristics of the job (most of the time on-site) and the
knowledge used. The necessary knowledge for a qualified logistics staff were more
related to policy and procedure, which was more convenient to share and learn through
job rotation and learning-by-doing (C8/P24). In addition, many tasks fulfilled were on-
site, and social media was a very fast and convenient mechanism to share information.
“For example, the new policies that must be implemented imminently, we will
share it immediately in the department and in the company. Due to the high
demand for timely update, we usually choose to push the information in
WeChat group immediately from on-site, and then organize meeting.”
(C11/P27)
In addition to the knowledge characteristics, the urgency level of the task also influenced
the mechanism selection. The urgent task would prefer faster, and person-to-person
mechanism, such as phone (C5/P18).
“In case of unexpected emergent problems happened in production or R&D,
telephone communication is priority to solve the problem. If it is not urgent,
This paper was presented at The ISPIM Innovation Conference – Innovating Our Common Future,
Berlin, Germany on 7-10 June 2020.
10
management software will be used to communicate and solve the problem.”
(C7/P21)
Factors prohibited knowledge sharing were related to confidentiality and non-relevance.
The knowledge will not be shared if beyond the confidential limit, nor will it be shared if
the sender perceived it as irrelevant with the potential receiver.
“The only obstacle/hindrance of knowledge sharing is confidential. For
example, the product failure mode and measures are not disclosed to public, so
it is impossible to share. This is mainly to protect against competitors.” (C2/P4)
“It is not necessary to share such information with other departments as it is not
relevant.” (C3/P10)
Regarding how to facilitate knowledge sharing, top management support and the
sharing/learning culture in the company were emphasized.
“R&D staffs are willing to share their knowledge with others although they
may be in different fields. This is attributed to the learning culture of the
company, from top to down.” (C7/P23)
Knowledge reuse
In the current study, knowledge reuse focuses on knowledge sourcing (i.e. acquiring from
which sender) and the mechanism used, from the receiver’s perspective. Knowledge
reuse was not only necessary, but also embedded in the daily work, as indicated by all the
interviewees.
As shown in Table 4 (next page), the scope of knowledge seeking in the different
PLC sub-phases were quite similar to the scope of the knowledge sharing, and the
mechanisms used were similar as well. The importance of R&D was clearly reflected
here, as all the sub-phases seek knowledge from R&D and reused it. When the
knowledge needed was not within the company, searching external knowledge was
necessary and automatic.
“It is now an open society. External knowledge sourcing is necessary. For us,
usually external knowledge sourcing is for cross-boundary knowledge because
they are more professional in their professional fields. By using these cross-
boundary or multi-disciplinary knowledge, we can speed up the R&D process.”
(C1/P2)
Table 4 Knowledge sourcing (from which sender) and mechanism
R&D Purchasing Production Logistics Customer service Sales
R&D
training,
mentor,
meeting,
public folder,
informal discussion
intranet by permission
training (organized by
R&D),
intranet by permission,
meeting,
email,
phone
informal discussion
training (organized by
R&D),
intranet by permission,
meeting,
email,
phone
informal discussion
training (organized by
R&D),
intranet by permission,
email,
informal discussion
training (organized by
R&D),
intranet by permission,
meeting,
email,
phone
informal discussion
training (organized by
R&D),
intranet by permission,
meeting,
email,
phone
informal discussion
Purchasing
intranet by permission,
sharing platform,
email,
informal discussion
training,
mentor,
meeting,
public folder,
informal discussion
intranet by permission
e-flow,
email,
phone,
meeting
Production
e-flow,
report,
meeting,
email,
informal discussion,
intranet by permission
e-flow,
meeting,
report,
email,
informal discussion,
intranet by permission
training,
mentor,
meeting,
public folder,
informal discussion
intranet by permission
e-flow
e-flow,
email,
phone
Logistics
e-flow
training,
mentor,
meeting,
social media,
job rotation,
public folder,
informal discussion,
intranet by permission
Customer
service
e-flow,
regular report,
email,
phone
training,
mentor,
meeting,
public folder,
informal discussion
intranet by permission
Sales
report,
email,
phone,
informal discussion
training,
mentor,
meeting,
public folder,
informal discussion
intranet by permission
Other branches
intranet by permission,
email
Supplier
supplier visit,
joint project meeting,
informal discussion,
document from supplier,
co-innovation system
supplier visit,
e-flow,
informal discussion,
co-innovation system
Customer
training organized by
customer,
document,
customer visit
report,
email,
phone
report,
e-flow,
email,
phone
customer visit,
phone,
email
Government /
Regulatory
authority
official website search
official website search,
official wechat account/
group,
training organized by
government,
phone
Logistics in
other company,
transportation
capacity
provider
WeChat,
report,
email,
phone,
informal discussion
Other
conferences,
exhibitions,
3rd party report
3rd party report
BOL MOL
B
O
L
M
O
L
E
x
te
rn
a
l
So
u
rc
in
g
kn
o
w
le
d
g
e
fr
o
m
..
.
The point needs to be emphasized in BOL was knowledge sourcing of R&D and
purchasing. Both sub-phases seek in-depth knowledge from supplier, such as the
supplier’s innovation, because it could be used in their own R&D to speed up the process
and have better material selection (C2/P3, C5/P16). In addition, conferences and
exhibitions were very important sources of knowledge for R&D, but it was not mentioned
by any other sub-phases (C6/P19). The point needs to be emphasized in MOL was
knowledge souring of logistic. Government / regulatory authority was the most important
This paper was presented at The ISPIM Innovation Conference – Innovating Our Common Future,
Berlin, Germany on 7-10 June 2020.
12
external knowledge source for them, but rarely used by other sub-phases. This was
consistent with the expertise required in logistics, i.e. policy related knowledge.
“Suppliers will also develop new materials, such as lighter, smaller, and
cheaper materials. This innovation from suppliers can be used on our own
innovation. Like the new material I mentioned just now, it is possible to use it
and make our own products lighter and smaller.” (C2/P3)
“The official platform provides by the government (for us, mostly Customs) is
very important for us because they provide timely information on new
policy/regulation. Based on this, we can response promptly. In addition, any
confusion about the new policy/regulation can be asked on the platform and get
the appropriate answer.” (C5/P15)
The mechanism selection of knowledge sourcing during the knowledge reuse process was
impacted by many factors, such as the sender’s credit, the possibility of getting the
needed knowledge, and the importance and urgency level of the task.
“We prefer to get the latest policy from the official website because it is
accurate (no fake) and fast.” (C11/P27)
“We want to search within our department first because we know the
possibility of finding the needed knowledge is higher.” (C10/P26)
“According to the degree of importance and urgency, sometimes multiple
confirmation will be required. In such case, a combination of multiple ways
will be needed for knowledge sourcing.” (C4/P14)
However, in the companies interviewed, no matter whether there was comprehensive
knowledge repository or not, person-to-person mechanism was still preferred by the
interviewees as most knowledge needed could be obtained through this mechanism
(C6/P9).
“Even if there are documents ready for check, they are still more inclined to
communicate with people directly to search the knowledge.” (C1/P2)
Knowledge reuse is good. However, rigidly following the procedure sometimes also
implies less flexibility. Therefore, a balance needs to be made between proceduralization
and practicality when reusing knowledge (C3/P8).
“The knowledge is inherited by the company through years’ accumulation.
Using/applying them in daily work will definitely reduce risk, but it also means
less flexibility.” (C6/P19)
The impact of digitalization
All the employees agreed that digitalization made changes in the companies.
Digitalization promoted international cooperation (C2/P3), decreased the workload
(C10/P26), reduced time cost (C2/P4), provided better guidance for decision-making
(C1/P1), made data analysis faster (C4/P14), allowed more efficient and accurate
feedback and tracing (C5/P18, C7/P21), and created a better business environment
(C9/P25). In order to have an idea of the most commonly used IT applications (Azyabi et
al., 2014; Alavi and Leidner, 2001; Hislop, 2005), the survey results are shown in Table
5.
Table 5 IT applications in PLC
R&D Purchasing Production Logistics Customer service Sales Mean Usage level
emails 5 5 5 5 5 5 5
intranet 5 5 5 4,67 4 *** 5 4,81
workflow systems 5 5 5 3,67 * 5 5 4,7
database management systems 5 5 5 3,83 *** 5 4 *** 4,63
search engines 5 4,8 3,25 *** 4,83 4,33 4,33 4,52
document management systems 4 4,8 4,5 4,33 4,33 4,67 4,41
instant messaging 3 3,2 2,5 4,5 *** 4 *** 4 *** 3,52
groupware systems 3,83 3,6 3,75 2,83 3 4,33 3,52
video conferencing 3,5 3 2,5 3,17 3 3,67 3,15
business intelligence systems 4 *** 3,2 2,25 2,33 3 3,67 *** 3,07
decision support systems 3,5 2,8 2,5 2,83 3 3 2,96
intensively
used
regularly
used
rarely used
*** P<0,001, ** P<0,01, * P<0,05 (Duncan alpha)
1= unknown application, 2= known but not used, 3 = rarely used, 4 = regularly used, 5 = intensively used
Although the sample size of the survey was small, it still provided some descriptive
information. Not surprisingly, emails, intranet, workflow systems, database management
systems, and search engine were intensively used in the PLC sub-phases surveyed.
However, compared to other sub-phases, the usage of intranet was lower in customer
service, and usage of search engine was lower in production, which was consistent with
the responsibility of those sub-phases. Consistent with our interview results, instant
messaging was used in MOL, especially in logistics.
The impact of digitalization on knowledge types, knowledge sharing, and knowledge
reuse was also investigated. Digitalization made cross-disciplinary knowledge more
important, which indeed means more knowledge reuse. Digitalization facilitated
standardization, which was very useful for documenting and archiving of the relevant
knowledge. In addition, it facilitated codified knowledge sharing by providing
comprehensive knowledge repository and convenient knowledge sharing platform.
Furthermore, digitalization facilitated knowledge reuse by decreasing the money and time
cost of knowledge reuse, and finally lead to faster new product development.
“In the future, there will be more and more cross-discipline and integration of
knowledge, which are reuse of knowledge. There will be more reuse of existing
knowledge, and new products will be produced through different new
combinations.” (C6/P20)
This paper was presented at The ISPIM Innovation Conference – Innovating Our Common Future,
Berlin, Germany on 7-10 June 2020.
14
“Informatization promotes standardization, including the standardization of
production data, the standardization of equipment maintenance, etc., which is
good for documentation.” (C1/P2)
“Now it is more convenient and efficient for knowledge sharing. Knowledge
sharing changed from using paper, fax to using public folders, platforms,
intranet, etc.” (C3/P9)
“The efficient knowledge accumulation (i.e. stored in the system, or public
folders for future reference) with the help of digitalization significantly reduce
the cost of time and money for knowledge reuse, thus speed up the new product
development process.” (C7/P22)
However, digitalization also raised challenges. With digitalization, the faster and more
convenience access to the external knowledge means that other companies can also
quickly and easily acquire knowledge from our side. Therefore, information security
turns to be more important and more difficult than ever, which should be paid attention to
by all the companies (C5/P15). In addition, the convenience and expeditiousness brought
by digitalization is not free. High investment is needed, and timely maintenance is
required, which are not easy for any company.
“Security becomes more important than ever. Data access must be set with
strict permissions, even within the company.” (C6/P19)
“The cost of the system is high, and system maintenance is very difficult. Once
there is a problem in the system, the down time of the production line is longer
than the traditional way.” (C3/P10)
“If there is update lags in the system, there will be negative effect. Therefore,
the maintenance of the system is very important to keep it up to date.” (C5/P17)
5 Conclusion and suggestions
Through conducting semi-structured interviews and supplemented by small scale
questionnaire survey in both manufacturing and logistic companies, this study
investigated knowledge sharing and knowledge reuse practices in different PLC sub-
phases, as well as the impact of digitalization on those practices. More specifically, sub-
phases R&D, purchasing, and production represented BOL phase, and sub-phases
logistics, customer service, and sales represented MOL phase. It was found that
knowledge requirements were different between all the sub-phases. However, similarities
could be found within BOL and MOL. For instance, production knowledge and supplier
knowledge were only used during the BOL phase. By contrast, the commonly used
customer knowledge in MOL was used by only one sub-phase in BOL (i.e. R&D). From
the sender’s perspective, knowledge sharing scope and degree were different between the
PLC sub-phases. Within the company, R&D shared knowledge with all the sub-phases
except logistics, whereas purchasing and production’s knowledge sharing mainly
occurred within BOL. Quite different from BOL, sub-phases of MOL mostly shared
knowledge with BOL, rather than within MOL. With regards to the mechanism used,
mentor was only used within department, and job rotation and social media were only
used in logistics. It was also found that the mechanism selection was influenced by the
characteristics of the job position, the knowledge involved, and the urgency level of the
task. Confidentiality and non-relevance were the two barriers for knowledge sharing.
From the receiver’s perspective, the scope of knowledge seeking and the mechanisms
used in the different PLC sub-phases were quite similar to those in knowledge sharing.
Knowledge sourcing of R&D and purchasing reflected the importance of applying
supplier’s innovation to speed up the company’s own new product development, whereas
knowledge sourcing of logistics reflects the importance of knowledge sender’s credit.
One important finding from this study was that person-to-person mechanism was still a
priority even if there were existing convenient knowledge repository in the company.
Some IT applications were intensively used, such as emails, intranet, and workflow
systems, whereas decision support system was rarely used. With the existing IT
applications, digitalization not only facilitated knowledge sharing and reuse, but also
raised challenges such as information security and timely maintenance.
Based on the findings from the empirical study, some managerial implications will be
discussed to promote better knowledge sharing/reuse in the digital era under PSS context
and from a PSS provider’s perspective. Firstly, practitioners should clearly identify the
specific knowledge requirements in each PLC sub-phases and make sure that the correct
understanding exists from both the sender and the receiver to enhance knowledge
sharing/reuse efficacy. Secondly, a match should be made between the knowledge
shared/sourced and the mechanism used. To achieve this, the job position, the knowledge
characteristics, the task characteristics, the sender’s credit, the receiver’s knowledge
requirement, and the convenience of the mechanism should be considered simultaneously
but by making priority based on different context. For instance, if multi-department
cooperation is required to solve an urgent problem, the most efficient mechanism will be
meeting, no matter face-to-face or virtual, so that rich knowledge can be shared and
discussed. If the urgent problem can be solved by the cooperation between two parties,
phone call plus e-flow would be more convenient and economical. Thirdly, the
importance of competent people/personnel should be emphasized. The development of
digitalization changes customer demand and even generates new customer demand. In the
same field/area, the requirement of knowledge changed to be more in-depth. In addition,
the cross-field/area customer demand means the requirement for multi-disciplinary
knowledge integration. This is much more complex than in-depth knowledge in the same
field/area. All these call for competent personnel in the company. In addition, even if the
company has excellent processes/procedures and excellent knowledge storage, it is still
difficult to completely replicate a person's knowledge because of the important tacit
knowledge possessed by the person. Therefore, creation of a culture/mechanism to retain
the competent employee in the company turns to be extremely important. Fourthly, but
not lastly, investment on knowledge repository should be strengthened if possible.
Knowledge will be reused more due to the incremental, rather than radical innovation in
most companies. The investment is not only limited to the hardware, but also includes the
maintenance of the system, the standardization of data (e.g. input data), and the archiving
of the documents. All of these will facilitate the future employees to master and reuse
knowledge faster with the help of easy searching.
This paper was presented at The ISPIM Innovation Conference – Innovating Our Common Future,
Berlin, Germany on 7-10 June 2020.
16
Finally, the limitation in the current study should be address for future research. First,
case study approach was adopted, which is helpful to get in-depth understanding of the
topic investigates. However, it also decreases the generalization of the result due to the
limited number of interviews. Further study could be conducted by using large sample
survey to generalize one or more selected research areas in this study. Secondly, the
companies interviewed were from different industries, which made the PLC sub-phases
in our study could only be represented by the functional departments in different
industries. A future study with more companies in the same industry would be valuable to
better compare knowledge sharing/reuse in different PLC sub-phases.
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934
KN
OW
LEDGE SHARIN
G AN
D REUSE IN
PRODUCT-SERVICE SYSTEM
S W
ITH A PRODUCT LIFECYCLE PERSPECTIVE
Yan Xin
ISBN 978-952-335-588-0
ISBN 978-952-335-589-7 (PDF)
ISSN-L 1456-4491
ISSN 1456-4491
Lappeenranta 2020