Digital technologies to support lifecycle management of smart product-service solutions

While digitalisation is at the heart of the strong research stream on Factory of the Future and Industry 4.0, the convergence between digitalization and business innovations through servitization leads to a new and already very active area of research on Digital Servitization. Part of this transition are Product-Service-Systems (PSS), which have generated a large amount of research work over the past decade and which have recently evolved towards the ‘smart PSS’ concept, by integrating artificial intelligence and digital supports. These new generation Product-Service-Systems are not only smart in terms of functionalities for the final users, but also smarter and smarter along most of the phases of their proper life cycle, thus providing added-value to most of the actors of the ecosystem in addition to the final user: smart at design time, smart for installation and delivery phase, smart for usage and maintenance, smart for end-of life. Digital Servitization opens opportunities for multi-dimensional and multi-actor value exchanges, increasing its strategical innovative impact for industrial companies.