A Design Toolkit to Integrate Distributed Manufacturing into Product-Service Systems Development

Abstract

Implementation of Product-Service Systems (PSS) has a great sustainability potential. However, PSS are not widely put into practice because of a number of barriers. The authors of this paper propose that Distributed Manufacturing (DM) can be applied to improve PSS development. Existing, yet very fragmented attempts made by other scholars illustrate potential applications of DM features to PSS. However, the absence of practical support of DM and PSS combination encouraged authors to develop a DM applied to PSS design toolkit. This paper describes the research process which has been carried out to develop the design toolkit and define the proposed design process. Empirical toolkit’s applications with companies, design practitioners and students show the potential of the toolkit to support sustainability-oriented idea generation for each PSS life cycle stage.