Development of product-service system- a comparison between large firms and SMEs in Sweden

Abstract

Consulta en la Biblioteca ETSI Industriales (7982)

[EN] Not long time ago, most of a product¿s added value came from the production processes that transformed raw materials into products. Now, added value is created by technological improvements, intellectual property, product image and brand names, aesthetic design and styling; all non material aspects of products. It makes manufacturers to be interesting in adding value through the provision of services that extend the spectrum of their products. This is the genesis of Product Service Systems a concept where the focus is placed on the function that a product provides rather than on the physical product. This new concept is getting more attention in manufacturing industries and they are starting to offer service contents in addition or even instead of the physical product. The purpose of the study is to analyse the current situation of SMEs in Sweden regarding to the Product-Service System focus and with the help of previous researches try to compare the behavior of SMEs and large companies within this topic. There have been consulted previous publications and researches in this field of knowledge to obtain information to implement the Frame of References which was the theoretical device of the study. Then it was decided about what kind of information could be interesting to get from the companies and in this way it was elaborated a survey with 31 questions attached in Appendix E. This survey was handed out to thirty SMEs Swedish companies. In the chapter ¿Survey Results¿ the answers are presented, commented and also compared to the results of the study made by Sundin and Lindahl (2004) marking the differences between them. In ¿Analysis¿ it is tried to relate the previous ideas compiled in ¿Frame of References¿ with the survey¿s results pointing up the connexions and differences. It could be concluded that PSS are in a starting phase of development in Swedish SMEs and as many authors marked, the main obstacle in this development continues being the companies¿ reticence to preserve the ownership of the physical product after the contract is signed, decreasing the potential benefits of this system for both companies and customers. Otherwise, since a more reduced number of answers were obtained to this survey than the obtained by previous researches made with mostly large companies, it can be suspected this concept is more related to large companies at least in this starting phase where we are.