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Procedia CIRP 64 (2017) 306 – 311

The 9th CIRP IPSS Conference: Circular Perspectives on Product/Service-Systems

Data Mining in Product Service Systems Design: Literature Review and

Research Questions
Alessandro Bertoni*, Tobias Larsson

Blekinge Institute of Technology, Campus Gräsvik, 37179 Karlskrona, Sweden

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +46 455 38 55 02. E-mail address: alessandro.bertoni@bth.se

Abstract

The paper presents a literature review about data mining applications in Product/Service-Systems (PSS) design. A systematic literature review,
combined with snowballing techniques, has been run to identify relevant contributions in the area. The analysis has focused on the
categorization of the contributions according to their impact on the PSS design process and according to their theoretical or empirical nature. A
picture of the different research achievements for each stage of the PSS design process have been drawn, identifying the research gaps in
respect to the challenges of PSS design. Based on the analysis the paper proposes a set of research questions for each PSS design stage
with the intent of facilitating the application of data mining techniques in PSS design, and ultimately push forward the state of the art.

2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY­NC­ND license 
(Peerhttp://creativecommons-reviewunderresponsibility.org/licenses/byof­thenc­nd/4scientific.0/). committee of the 9th CIRP IPSS Conference: Circular Perspectives on Product/Service-

PeerSystems­review. under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 9th CIRP IPSS Conference: Circular Perspectives on Product/Service­Systems.

Keywords: Product service systems design; data mining; research questions; literature review.
focuses requiring different
expertise.

1. Introduction given by the multi-dimensional

and multidisciplinary nature of
The research presented in
the design process, generating this paper has the purpose
Information and communication technologies have revolutionised a large amount of to explore the potential that
lifestyles, global interaction and industrial working practices. heterogeneous data for which resides in the integration of
Companies are nowadays potentially capable of collecting data suitable mining methods are data mining techniques into
about any product lifecycle activity and performance. Devices and not readily available [5],
methods and tools for PSS
sensors may become “smart” and are used in a variety of contexts: accentuated by a generic lack
from monitoring the performances of machines, to predict failures of context around the situation design. The aim of the
and run preventive maintenance, to provide driving assistance and where data is collected. In the paper is therefore to
to manage a whole fleet of vehicles based on GPS (see for development of products and investigate, and review, the
instance [1-3]). The use of data mining in combination with the services combinations, i.e. theoretical and empirical
development of IT infrastructures and with increased data storage product/service-systems applications of data mining
capabilities, has propelled a profound shift toward more (PSS), a formalized approach in PSS design literature,
transparent, informed and autonomous decision-making [4]. on how to use data to develop by:
However, while companies are often in the situation of being new and more value adding
capable of collecting a huge amount of data, their use is often solutions is missing. This is
limited to maintenance and management purposes; more rarely due to the relative novelty of Mapping and analyzing the
those data become useful knowledge and insights in the design both the PSS design field and current contributions into
phase of a new products or services. A challenge is of the data mining field, which the PSS design process.
have developed with different
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by­nc­
2212­8271 © 2017  nd/4.0/).
The Authors. 
Published by  Peer­review under responsibility of the 
Elsevier B.V. This  scientific committee of the 9th CIRP IPSS 
is an open access  Conference: Circular Perspectives on 
article under the CC Product/Service­Systems. 
BY­NC­ND license  doi:10.1016/j.procir.2017.03.131
Alessandro Bertoni and Tobias Larsson / Procedia CIRP 64 (2017) 306 – 311
307
 concept of machine learning, i.e.
the study of computer algorithms
Highlighting a list of research questions to be addressed to The papers were further that improve automatically
enable a wider application of data mining into PSS design. categorized by adding a through experience [10]. Data
distinction between those mining and machine learning are
describing a framework or a used in engineering both with the
The paper first describes the methodology applied in the conceptual method and those
literature review by briefly presenting the PSS design predictive goal of forecasting the
providing examples of real case value of a variable and with the
process used as a reference for the analysis. In section 3 study applications. The
the literature review and the analysis are presented together classification was run in a way descriptive goal of understanding
with a number of identified research questions. Section 4 and discovering patterns in the
that each paper could be available data [9]. The following
closes the paper by drawing the final conclusions. assigned only to one category. sub-sections provide an account
The discriminant for the selection of the application of data mining
2. Methodology was the “main contribution” of and machine learning available in
literature highlighting applications
the paper, evaluated based explicitly referring to the context of
The research was initially approached through a PSS design.
literature search run on a major research database (i.e. on the content and on the
Scopus1). The scope of the search was deliberately terminology stressed by the
limited to those papers presenting the use of data mining authors in the “conclusion” 3.1. Summary of state-of-the-art
section of the papers. and paper categorization
techniques referring to the design of PSS or to the
conjunct design of products and services. The concept The analysis of the literature and
of “machine learning”, although not synonym of data the research questions derived The papers identified in the
mining (as explain in section 3) was also included in the are the result of an analytical literature review have been first
process applied to a critical categorized based on if their main
research, to assure the completeness of the results.
literature review (similarly to what contribution in respect to the PSS
described by Jessons and Lacey design process, and then based
In a first step a systematic research for papers was [8]). The theoretical contributions on the type of academic
performed. The search was directed toward titles, abstracts were analyzed in respect with the contribution, that is, if the paper
or keywords containing the term “product service systems” available examples in applied presented a conceptual
in combination with either “data mining” “machine learning” research. This has allowed the framework or method, or if it
or “data science”. This first round of analysis led to the production of a general concerned the presentation of a
identification of only 13 unique papers. Due to such limited framework of analysis in real case implementation of an
number of publications the literature base was expanded by consideration of the main issues approach. A further distinction
applying a snowballing technique [6] on the initial set of and challenges recognized in was made based on the
papers. The reference list of each of the paper was literature for the design of PSS, terminology used when referring
screened for relevant contributions and 21 papers were encompassing weak and sweets to the design of product and
selected for detailed analysis at the end of the process. spots of the main PSS design service combinations, i.e., the
methods and tools. Upon this papers explicitly referring to PSS
basis, the direct impact on applied in the text, and the papers not
Those papers were later analyzed by classifying their practice was the driving criterion
content and contribution in relation to the PSS design directly using the PSS
for the definition of the questions, terminology even if dealing with
process. To define the categories for analysis the “Generic with a focus on the empirical
IPSS/PSS development process model” by Müller and Stark benefits of developing more relevant topics for the
[7] was adopted as reference. The model is “V-shaped” and advanced method and tools for investigation. The reason for
encompasses 4 levels of detail: doing this last classification was
PSS design. to verify the popularity of the data
market/customer/environment level, value level, system
level, module and component level. For each level, different mining topic in the major
activities take place involving different stakeholders. The 3. Data mining in PSS publication arena for PSS
following five main activities have been identified in research.
design: contributions and
accordance to the model and have been used to provide a research questions
first classification of the literature: The results of the classification
are visualized in Figure 1. The
Data mining is defined as the numbers in the white circles
Planning discovery of non-trivial, implicit, indicate the number of
previously unknown, and publications for each category
potentially useful and directly or indirectly related to the
Idea generation understandable patterns from
Embodiment design for subsystem development of PSS, the
large datasets [9]. When it comes numbers in the grey circles
Detailed design to application of data mining in indicate instead the number of
Delivery and use phase industrial environments, the term those publications explicitly
is often associated with the referring to a PSS terminology.
1
www.scopus.com
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