Demonstrating industrial smart product-service systems: Industry 4.0 maturity through stakeholder-oriented development and testing

Servitization and the increasing use of digital technologies have led to the emergence of smart product-service systems (sPSS). Although sPSS offer wide-ranging potentials for manufacturing firms, the heterogeneity of technological stacks and their cross-disciplinary nature pose challenges concerning their development and the articulation of value propositions. This paper proposes a stakeholder-oriented, prototypical environment for developing and testing sPSS scenarios using a modular demonstrator. The demonstrator offers a concrete representation of manufacturing processes and allows different stakeholder groups to communicate their requirements and expectations. Three scenarios with increasing technological complexity are implemented to present the value-creating potential of industrial sPSS.