Towards Molecular Representation: How to Depict Relationships within a System for Product-Service System Design

The utility of classifying a product-service system (PSS) as a standard diagram that shows the relationship between its product and service portions, was demonstrated in an earlier research to clarify design specifications. Ten configuration types were proposed, implying any new PSS could potentially be represented by one of these standard diagrams. From 2016 to 2019, the process of characterizing PSS ideas was tested in business setting across four industries. It was found that the process of building PSS representation diagram, which was then used to identify its configuration type, was infeasible in business setting. Instead of one overall representation, multiple mini-representation diagrams for key relationships were adopted, which begged the question of how PSS configuration type could be identified. Moreover, the process of identifying PSS configuration type was largely subjective, which diminished the potential of using the configuration type of a PSS to inform development teams about key aspects of the development, such as stakeholder engagement requirements and contingent environmental conditions. This study examines the previously proposed configuration types in light of the usage of mini-representation diagrams. It proposes novel molecular representations that depict the core structures of PSSs. Future research trajectories following the molecular representation proposal conclude this paper.