FUNCTIONAL PRODUCTS: HIGHLIGHTING THE POTENTIAL AND EXTENDING THE DEFINITION

Sammanfattning: The Functional Product (FP) concept has brought an innovative view on how products can be offered to customers. When offering FP, the FP provider is commonly responsible for the hardware performance, which may be based either on an existing product or on a new product. The focus is on the delivery of a total-care offer (performance/productivity, availability, function), rather than on the physical product and related support services. The underlying idea of FP design is to meet the individual needs of customers; e.g., by providing functions such as torque, rotation, etc. through provision of function with an agreed-upon (guaranteed) level of availability. Among all related integrated product service (IPS) concepts, the FP stands out as an innovative and FPD ideas were proposed as possible solutions to identified PSS challenges. Secondly, the FP definition was extended in terms of emerging constituents and business model elements. Both results are based on literature reviews taking into account the related IPS concepts’ constituents and generic as well as IPS concepts’ business model elements. Both literature reviews were used to frame the in-depth interviews with a number of manufacturing corporations on particular issues accordingly. As an overall result, the research behind this thesis has shown that the extended definition of the FP, both technology-wise and business-wise, can expand andthus increase the FP potential as well as further consolidate the FP innovation development. In addition, the presented results have also shown that the FP research field is expanding due to increasing interest from manufacturing industry as well as academia. This interest stems from a desire to achieve successful FP development, improved marketing/sales and subsequent operation of the FP at customers. This licentiate thesis consists of an introduction and three appended papers. sustainable business-to-business concept for the manufacturing industry. This licentiate thesis aims to highlight FP potential and to extend the FP definition in order to increase that potential. To achieve the desired aim, literature reviews together with in-depth interviews were used as the research approach. Firstly, in regards to highlighting FP potential, through the literature review, on the one hand, a number of PSS challenges (as a related IPS concept) were identified and analysed; on the other hand, FP development ideas (i.e., methods, tools, models) were studied and analysed. As a result, certain existing FPD ideas were proposed as possible solutions to identified PSS challenges. Secondly, the FP definition was extended in terms of emerging constituents and business model elements. Both results are based on literature reviews taking into account the related IPS concepts’ constituents and generic as well as IPS concepts’ business model elements. Both literature reviews were used to frame the in-depth interviews with a number of manufacturing corporations on particular issues accordingly. As an overall result, the research behind this thesis has shown that the extended definition of the FP, both technology-wise and business-wise, can expand and thus increase the FP potential as well as further consolidate the FP innovation development. In addition, the presented results have also shown that the FP research field is expanding due to increasing interest from manufacturing industry as well as academia. This interest stems from a desire to achieve successful FP development, improved marketing/sales and subsequent operation of the FP at customers. This licentiate thesis consists of an introduction and three appended papers.