Output details

Critical reflections on designing product service systems

The paper describes a design process and evaluation adopted for the design of Product Service Systems (PSS) as part of a Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) funded project Achieving Household Waste Prevention on New Housing Developments Through Product Service Systems (2005-2008). The PSS literature has historically emphasised theory building. In contrast this paper describes a pragmatic approach to the design for implementation of PSS. Four PSS concepts were designed in conjunction with a UK house builder and evaluated in three new UK housing developments. The paper explores the opportunities for such service innovations to satisfy household demand and reduce consumer durable household waste. Based on a number of dialogues with the house builder and new homeowners the research team created a series of PSS options. An exploration and evaluation of the selected PSS were undertaken with the homeowner groups. The paper describes the process through which the concept PSS were designed, selected and evaluated, alongside the practical and commercial parameters of the project. It emphasises the importance of understanding the multi-scale relationships in design when responding to the challenges associated with creating different PSS outcomes that reorganise relationships between people, resources and the environment. This research is distinctive in that it uses empirical data collected from producers and consumers to develop PSS concepts. Such data provides insights on the potential conflicts between opportunities to design different PSS outcomes, the expectations of producers to implement outcomes as ‘business-as-usual’ and the requirements of users for flexible function fulfilment in familiar ways. In brief it neatly points to potential design conflicts in supply and demand agendas, particularly those responding to issues of sustainability.