Towards integrated solutions : Alfa Laval and the wastewater industry

Sammanfattning: Manufacturing companies in the capital goods industry face opportunities and challenges to their traditionally used business model for selling products, spare parts and services. They are encountering increasing pressure to provide their customers with broader, more tailored solutions. With these integrated solutions, as they are referred to in this thesis, companies are combining services with products to address their customers' business needs, and focus on the delivery of performance.The objective of this thesis is to address this fairly new concept of integrated solutions using Alfa Laval as a study case in a wastewater industry setting. The business and organisational implications of the move towards integrated solutions have been explored and the move characterised in the context of innovation literature. The thesis comprises five supporting chapters and four empirical papers. The first of these four papers explores and identifies incentives and new competence requirements for providing integrated solutions. The second paper highlights the influence that external elements such as changes in market structure have on providing integrated solutions. The third paper explores internal processes at Alfa Laval supporting a move towards integrated solutions. The fourth and final paper describes the development and launch of a self-optimising control system for the dewatering process, which is licensed out to customers, hence challenging Alfa Laval's traditional way of doing business.The thesis links Alfa Laval's move towards integrated solutions with its capabilities in the areas of system integration, operational services, partnering and organisational competence, and its approach to customers. It also shows that Alfa Laval's move towards integrated solutions encompasses products, services, performance and organisational innovations.