Boundary Conditions for a New Type of Design Task: Understanding Product/Service-Systems

Manufacturing companies have traditionally focused their efforts on developing and producing physical products for the market. Currently, however, many companies are rethinking their business strategies, from selling products to providing services. In place of the product alone, the activity and knowledge associated with the use of the product is increasingly perceived to be the new design object. But how to organise the design of combined products and services, over expanded time domains and new stakeholder boundaries? The design research community is paying increasing attention to this new design object and research paradigm, studying service‐oriented approaches to product development and seeking to understand how to spell the systematic development of these so-called Product/Service‐Systems (PSS). When considering the shift towards PSS in the domain of engineering, it is in-teresting to understand the shifting focus and identification of boundary conditions that manufacturing organisations must undergo, in order to develop just as systematic an approach to the service-related aspects of their business development, as they have in place for their product development. This chapter will attempt to map out some of the boundary conditions for PSS design research, in order to ensure that the phenomenon is successfully trans-formed into a well balanced design research field, including the necessary do-mains of expertise and research content to fully understand, develop and also communicate the field to industrial manufacturing companies.