Innovative synergy of products and services
Nowadays, customers’ purchase habits have changed: they do not buy goods or services in the traditional sense, perceiving them as two separated entities. They rather look for a solution, whose value encompasses a lot of intertwined components, some of them being services and some being goods. The battle between competitors is waged not only in product quality. The fight for additional revenues also happens in the speed of providing integrated solutions (namely product-service system – PSS). Moreover, technology allows the immediate processing of goods and services. Degrees of technology vary across organisations providing goods and services. This EU-funded project, PROSSALIC (Product-service system across life cycle), consisted of an exchange programme involving 10 partners, five EU countries, one Associated Country and four third-country partners. Students, researchers and professors exchanged theoretical and practical information on strategy, operations and value chain, technology, system integration capabilities and human resources experiences in the area of product-service system. They explored new ways for product-service systems in the EU to innovate at an industrial level. Active involvement of all partners included visits abroad, course attendance, joint research projects and attending industrial seminars. This international consortium produced joint publications, and created highly collaborative networking events in Brazil, Italy and Japan. The main object of the exchange scheme was to enable the reciprocal transfer of knowledge between the members and among the scientific community. The partners also developed new teaching materials based on the new knowledge, and shared teaching approaches. Strengthening research connections internationally, PROSSALIC has created an important positive platform for national and international companies interested in product-service systems.
Keywords
Product manufacturers, services, product-service system, goods, consumers, value chain, system integration
