A Systematic Literature Review on Product-Service Systems

Classifications and Types

Lukas Waidelich, Rebecca Bulander,

Alexander Richter, Bernhard Kölmel and Patrice Glaser

IoS

- Institute of Smart Systems and Services, Pforzheim University, Tiefenbronner Str. 65, Pforzheim, Germany

Keywords: Product-Service System (PSS), PSS Classification, PSS Types, Literature Review of PSS, Servitisation,

Digitalisation, Business Models, Business Model Innovation.

Abstract: This paper primarily deals with a systematic literature review on Product-Service Systems (PSS) classifica-

tions. The initial question was, how can information and profound knowledge regarding the classification of

PSS be acquired? A very extensive scientific and systematic literature research containing 125 works was

carried out for this purpose. In doing so, we concentrated on the central question of how PSS can be classified.

Here we have found out which PSS classifications are widely used in literature and how they differentiate. As

a result, the five identified PSS classifications are described and compared. Derived from this, we have ana-

lysed the various PSS types from the PSS classification and made a comparison of these types for the first

time in the literature. As a result, similarities and differences between the authors are presented and examined.

This research will enable us to go one step ahead and develop a framework that can be applied to classify

companies or certain business models in regard to PSS. Thus, a scientific contribution could be made to the

field of PSS classification.

1 INTRODUCTION TO PSS

Today's business environment is increasingly charac-

terized by unpredictability - manufacturing compa-

nies like AEG, Grundig, Kodak and Nokia are disap-

pearing from the market or are no longer dominant

although these companies have distinguished them-

selves for many years through excellent product and

process innovativeness (Mahler et al. 2013;

Gassmann et al. 2017).

On the one hand, manufacturing companies oper-

ate in global markets and therefore compete directly in

terms of quality, technology and costs. This results in

strong international pricing pressure, stagnating sales

and profit margins, as well as the shrinking possibility

of differentiation in technology and quality due to the

increasing equivalence of competing products from

other global players (Meier und Uhlmann 2012, 2017;

Kölmel et al. 2017). These challenges are addressed at

the level of product and process innovations. On the

other hand, established companies are challenged by

business model innovations. Driven and empowered

by digitalization, new disruptive business models

emerge that replace existing value chains in large parts

or even completely. These business model innovations

generally affect established providers in an unprepared

manner and may lead to complete market displace

ment, as in the case of the above-mentioned company

examples. For this reason, the development of innova-

tive business models is a basic prerequisite for long-term

competitiveness in the business context (Vogel-Heuser

und Lindemann 2014; Meier und Uhlmann 2012).

A possible and at the same time promising ap-

proach to this challenge are the so-called product-ser-

vice systems (PSS). These are understood to be an of-

fered solution that contains at least one service element

in addition to a product (Wong 2004). These can be

seen as a holistic innovation strategy that serves the

product, process and business model innovation levels

simultaneously. Companies are undergoing a change:

they are no longer limiting themselves to the develop-

ment and sale of products, instead they are supplement-

ing their portfolio with the provision of a system of

products and services tailored to specific customer re-

quirements (Manzini und Vezzoli 2003; Kowalkowski

et al. 2017; Baines et al. 2007; Richter et al. 2018; Wise

und Baumgartner 1999).

This paradigm shift counteracts the changed de-

mand behaviour through flexibly adaptable product

and service components on the customer side. The fo-

cus is on customer benefit, a sustained customer rela-

tionship is established, resulting in a long-term com-

petitive advantage (Vogel-Heuser und Lindemann

2014; Meier und Uhlmann 2012). The strategy aimed

Waidelich, L., Bulander, R., Richter, A., Kölmel, B. and Glaser, P.

A Systematic Literature Review on Product-Service Systems Classiﬁcations and Types.

DOI: 10.5220/0007919500830094

In Proceedings of the 16th International Joint Conference on e-Business and Telecommunications (ICETE 2019), pages 83-94

ISBN: 978-989-758-378-0

at supplementing products with associated services is

called servitisation. This can lead to a constant rise in

sales (Beuren et al. 2013; Aurich et al. 2006).

Today, there are many different forms of PSS in

practice across different branches. These are multi-lay-

ered, not easily understandable and especially not cat-

egorisable. The aim of this paper is consequently to

identify and compare the different classifications and

types of PSS in order to provide the reader with an

overview of the existing literature.

The present paper is structured as follows: After

the necessity of the topic is pointed out in the current

section, systematic literature research with focus on

PSS classifications is carried out in the second section.

The third section outlines the five identified PSS clas-

sifications. The results of the research and the different

classifications are the subject of the fourth section. The

fifth section provides a conclusion of the work and con-

cludes with an outlook on future research.

2 METHODOLOGY OF THE

LITERATURE RESEARCH

The current state of research on PSS is presented by a

literature review as a result of the structured literature

research according to Brocke et al. (Brocke et al.

2009). The literature research consists of the five

phases: Definition of review scope, Conceptualisa-

tion of Topic, Literature Search, Literature Analysis

and Synthesis and Research Agenda. The following

subsections describe the phases in more detail. phases

in more detail.

2.1 Definition of Review Scope

The scope of the investigation was determined at the

start of the literature research. The taxonomy of Cooper

(Cooper 1988) was applied. as provided in the method-

ology of Brocke et al. (Brocke et al. 2009). The focal

points of the individual categories (1) Fo-cus, (2) Goal,

(3) Organisation, (4) Perspective, (5) Audience and (6)

Coverage are marked in grey in Table 1. The focus

was on the identification of existing PSS theories as

well as on the identification of research approaches to

PSS classification. The second characteristic dealt with

the goal of research, which focuses on the critical ex-

amination of existing PSS classification patterns. The

next characteristic describes the organisation of the re-

search, which was carried out conceptually. The litera-

ture was examined and presented for different con-

cepts. The literature research was performed from a

neutral perspective, which was not evaluated before-

hand. The fifth characteristic describes the audience,

which has, on the one hand, the scientific character

and, on the other hand, a benefit for practice. Moreo-

ver, a selective literature search was carried out, based

on a complete literature search, but only selected works

are dealt with in depth.

2.2 Conceptualisation of the Topic

In a first step, existing knowledge such as keywords,

approaches and concepts were generated and docu-

mented in line with the topic using the creativity

methods of brainstorming. The result is a quantitative

and disorganized collection of topic specific terms. In

the next step, a concept mapping was carried out,

whereby the contents from the brainstorming were

brought into a logical context.

2.3 Literature Search

The third phase of literature research deals with the

identification and evaluation of relevant literature.

Initially, the search was focused on journal and

conference papers. Professional books were also an el-

ementary part of the search. The Academic Journal

Guide (AJG) Ranking 2015 was used to identify high-

quality journals (Association of Business Schools

2015). The wide-ranging PSS topic was addressed with

a cross-divisional search of economic, technical and

strategic aspects. Journals of category 4 or 4* of the

AJG2015 evaluation, which are among the most

renowned journals of the respective research depart-

ments, were considered. The AJG was used to identify

16 relevant journals, which were then systematically

searched according to the following pattern:

Table 1: Applied taxonomy of Cooper (Cooper 1988).

Characteristics

Categories

(1) Focus

Research outcomes

Research methods

Theories

Applications

(2) Goal

Integration

Criticism

Central Issues

(3) Organisation

Historical

Conceptual

Methodological

(4) Perspective

Neutral representation

Espousal of position

(5) Audience

Specialised scholars

General scholars

Practitioners

General public

(6) Coverage

Exhaustive

Exhaustive and selective

Representative

Central/pivotal

ICE-B 2019 - 16th International Conference on e-Business

The following search parameters and the search

process were standardised and applied to all literature

search operations for the purpose of comparability.

The study period ran from January 1995 to January

2018. The publications were searched by using the

English search string Product-Service System or PSS

respectively in combination with classification or

type in the title, keywords and abstract. The search

results were sorted by relevance and the first 100 re-

sults were analysed. The search results were evalu-

ated by a subsequent review of the abstracts in regard

to the PSS topic focusing on PSS classifica-tion. Once

a publication meets these criteria it has been consid-

ered for literature analysis. The literature search of the

16 identified AJG journals generated 114 results, of

which 13 articles were relevant and taken into ac-

count for the literature search.

The previous research work in the field of re-

nowned journals led to the identification of four suit-

able online databases in which a keyword search was

performed. These include Springer, ScienceDirect,

Emerald Insight and Web of Science. The search pa-

rameters and the search process were adopted from

the standardised journal search, expanded by the con-

cepts from the previous subsection and searched in

English and German form in the various databases:

First PSS as a fixed term, then in conjunction with the

search terms Classification, Synonym, Concept, Rele-

vance and Definition. Due to the overlaps from the

previous search in the area of journals as well as

within the four databases, only new literature was

considered. The database search enabled the identifi-

cation of 80 further publications consisting of journal

and conference papers as well as textbooks.

In addition, the literature search was extended by

a forward and backward search. The search was car-

ried out using ResearchGate, a kind of social network

for scientists, and Google Scholar, a specially de-

signed search engine for scientific documents. This

made it possible to increase the literature search by

another 32 to a total of 125 relevant publications.

2.4 Literature Analysis and Synthesis

This section has two key points: First, the 125 identi-

fied works from the literature search are examined in

detail, then the identified concepts from the second

subsection are compared with the identified works

from the previous section of the literature search.

The literature search carried out resulted in 125

literature works in the field of PSS. The majority of

the works (97) were published in English, 28 in Ger-

man. Most works were found in the ScienceDirect da-

tabase (36), followed by Springer (27), Emerald In-

sight (21), Google Scholar (18), ResearchGate (14)

and Web of Science (9). From the year 1999 to the

year 2017, at least one work was consistently consid-

ered. With 25 included publications from the year

2017, the relevance of the topic is also highlighted. In

quantitative terms, the works of the author Baines are

most frequently represented with five publications.

The authors Lightfoot, Nüttgens and Thomas are each

represented with four publications. In the category of

media types, 79 of the 125 works are papers in jour-

nals, 14 in conference papers, 25 in textbooks (mon-

ographs), four in individual sections in textbooks (an-

thologies) and three in doctoral theses. The publica-

tions were examined in detail by publishing company

as well as by journal. Eleven monographs and anthol-

ogies were published by Springer Gabler Verlag,

eight others by Springer Verlag and five publications

by Springer Vieweg Verlag. The remaining five

works were published by other publishers. In the area

of journals, 19 papers were published by the well-

known Journal of Cleaner Production and 13 papers

by the International Journal of Operations & Produc-

tion Management. The remaining publications are

distributed among other journals.

Afterwards the method of the Concept-Matrix, as

proposed by Brocke et al. (Brocke et al. 2009), was

used. With this in mind, the contents of the researched

literature were analysed in detail and assigned to the

various PSS concepts in the concept matrix. This ex-

tremely comprehensive overview was of funda-

mental importance for the further procedure, as im-

portant works could be identified in this way and dif-

ferent aspects of the concepts could be made visible.

2.5 Research Agenda

The literature search concludes with the formulation

of the research agenda. No literature could be identi-

fied that provided comprehensive coverage of the

manifold PSS concepts in adequate depth. Rather, the

concepts are only discussed individually or very su-

perficially. In addition, different concepts of several

authors have been identified in the field of classifica-

tion. In comparison to other concepts such as syno-

nyms or relevance, this topic is still underrepresented.

This reveals a research gap which will be investigated

in this paper. According to

the findings mentioned above, the literature search

leads to further potential research directions, which

will be dealt with in depth in the following research

questions:

 RQ1: Which PSS classifications exist in the liter-

ature?

A Systematic Literature Review on Product-Service Systems Classiﬁcations and Types

 RQ2: What do the PSS classifications have in

common and what are their differences?

 RQ3: Derived from RQ2 what PSS types exist and

how are they described?

 RQ4: Is it possible to summarize and compare the

PSS types on the basis of criteria?

3 PSS-CLASSIFICATIONS

In the following, the five identified PSS classifica-

tions of the respective authors are presented in chron-

ological order. Each classification contains at least

one PSS type, these types are also described in detail

in this section.

3.1 Classification According to Mont

Mont is one of the pioneers of the PSS research area.

Her work Clarifying the concept of product-service

system (Mont 2002), published in 2002, is the

foundation for further scientific work in the field of

PSS. One of the main components of her above

mentioned work is the classification of PSS. As can

be seen in Figure 1, the classification comprises five

elements from which the first PSS types are derived.

A PSS consists of products, services or a variable

combination of both elements. Services at the time of

sale include, for example, personal consultation in the

salesroom, financing offers for the customer, as well

as the product's explanation to the customer. There

are two concepts for the use of the products: On the

one hand, there is the (a) user oriented concept, in

which the customer derives the product benefit from

the product. On the other hand, there is the (b) result

oriented concept, in which the product benefit is made

possible for the customer by the product through the

provider. Maintenance services ensure that the prod-

uct is maintained and that its functions are properly

retained. In addition, it is possible to enhance the

product through function upgrades and thus extend

the product life cycle. The fifth element contains ser-

vices that are based on the concept of sustainability

and close the product-material lifecycle. These in-

clude the take-back of products, the re-use of func-

tional parts or recycling if re-use is not possible (Mont

2002).

With a focus on the classification of PSS types,

the third element of Monts classification is particu-

larly interesting. For the very first time, the two types

of use oriented and result oriented PSS are mentioned

there. In the context of her research, Mont does not

give any more detailed definitions of the two types

mentioned. However, it sets the basis for the PSS

types, which will be developed in the following years.

The classification of Tukker from the year 2004

presented in the following already draws on the pre-

paratory work of Mont from the year 2002.

3.2 Classification According to Tukker

In 2004, the Dutch researcher Tukker published the

paper Eight Types Of Product-Service System: Eight

Ways To Sustainability? Experiences From Sus-

ProNet (Tukker 2004) based on Mont's research. The

contained typology (see Figure 2) is a special form of

classification, which represents at the same time the

most common classification in the context of PSS re-

search (van Ostaeyen et al. 2013; Dimache und Roche

2013). Tukker sets PSS between pure product and

pure service. In between, Tukker defines three PSS

types. In addition to the use and result oriented PSS

already mentioned by Mont, Tukker introduces the

product oriented PSS type for the first time. In addi-

tion, Tukker divides the three PSS types into a total

of eight different sub-types, which he describes as

eight archetypal models. The use oriented PSS type is

divided into the three archetypal models product

Figure 1: PSS classification according to Mont (Mont, 2002).

ICE-B 2019 - 16th International Conference on e-Business

Figure 2: PSS classification according to Tukker (Tukker 2004).

lease, product renting/sharing and product pooling,

per service unit and functional result. Here it has to

be mentioned that the product share from the product

oriented to the use oriented up to the result oriented

PSS types successively decreases and the service

share increases in return (Tukker 2004). In the follow-

ing, the three PSS types and the eight archetypal mod-

els are described.

The product-oriented PSS concentrates on the sale of

products, which are additionally extended by individ-

ual services. Two archetypal models can be identified

(Tukker 2004):

Product related services: In addition to the sale of a

product, the customer is offered additional services that

are tailored to the product and serve to ensure usage.

These services range from maintenance contracts to the

delivery of consumables to the return of the product at

the end of its life cycle (Tukker 2004).

Advice and consultancy services: In addition to the

sale of the product, the supplier offers consulting servi-

ces to enable the customer the most efficient use of the

product. Examples of consulting services in this regard

are activities to improve the organisational structure or

to optimise logistical processes (Tukker 2004).

According to Tukker, the product still plays an im-

portant role in the benefit-oriented PSS, but the busi-

ness model is no longer focused exclusively on selling

the product, but on the use that can be generated from

the product. The supplier retains the ownership rights

and provides the product to different customer seg-

ments in different offering forms. Altogether three ar-

chetypes can be identified (Tukker 2004):

Product lease: During use, the product remains in

the ownership of the provider, who is also in charge of

maintenance, servicing, repair and inspection. The cus-

tomer is charged a fee for using the product on a regular

basis. In return, the customer receives an unlimited and

individual product usage opportunity (Tukker 2004).

Product renting/sharing: Similar to the lease offer,

the product remains in the ownership of the provider

during use, who is also accountable for maintenance,

servicing, repair and inspection. In the same manner,

the customer pays a fee to use the product. The main

difference to leasing is the scope of use. In this case the

use is limited in terms of time and not restricted to a

single individual. In other words, different users may

use the same product at different times (Tukker 2004).

Product pooling: This fifth archetype has identical

characteristics to the rental and sharing offer. The only

difference is the time of use. The product can be used

equally and at the same time by different numbers of

users (Tukker 2004).

With result-oriented PSS, the customer is not of-

fered a product for sale, but is offered a certain result

as a service, which the provider must fulfil. The pro-

vider is responsible for the manner in which the service

is fulfilled. Three archetypes can be determined (Tuk-

ker 2004):

Activity management/outsourcing: In this context,

parts of activities are outsourced to third parties. In or-

der to ensure a certain quality, performance indicators

are defined, which in many cases are contractual com-

ponents. This type can be found, for example, in the

cleaning or catering industry (Tukker 2004).

Pay per service unit: The product is the base that

the customer does not have to buy. Together with the

customer, a predefined performance is described,

which must be paid for according to the extent of use.

The provider is responsible for all activities required to

provide the performance. Charging is based on the ser-

vice unit being used (Tukker 2004).

Functional results: The provider commits to deliv-

ering a predefined result to the customer. The focus is

exclusively on achieving the result. How the provider

A Systematic Literature Review on Product-Service Systems Classiﬁcations and Types

achieves the result plays a minor role (Tukker 2004).

As mentioned at the beginning, the classification

according to Tukker is widely acknowledged in the

literature and thus represents the reference point for

further classifications in the field of PSS research (Di-

mache und Roche 2013).

3.3 Classification According to

Meier et al.

Almost simultaneously with Tukker, the German re-

searchers Meier et al. develop a similar understanding

of PSS. Their work Hybride Leistungsbündel (Meier

et al. 2005) appeared in 2005. Meier et al. describe a

further classification approach. This is aimed exclu-

sively at the B2B market and captures the perspective

of a manufacturing company. Meier et al. define a to-

tal of three PSS types that can be grouped between a

pure product and a pure service (Meier et al. 2005).

These characteristics can be found in Figure 3.

In the following, the three PSS types according to

Meier at al. are presented. In addition to use oriented

and result oriented PSS, which have already been

mentioned by Mont and described by Tukker, Meier

et al. coin the term function oriented PSS (Meier et al.

2005; Mont 2002; Tukker 2004):

Function oriented PSS: In addition to the sale of a

product, services are also provided in order to guar-

antee the functionality of the product over a certain

period of time. A meaningful example is a mainte-

nance contract for a production machine (Meier et al.

2005).

Use/Availability oriented PSS: This type guaran-

tees the customer a certain availability of the product.

The provider is involved in the customer's business

processes for the first time and thus partially bears the

production risk. This includes all processes, such as

maintenance or repair, in order to guarantee availabil-

ity. In a further publication, Meier et al. rename this

PSS type as availability oriented PSS (Meier et al.

2005; Meier und Uhlmann 2012).

Results oriented PSS: The supplier commits to the

customer to assume production responsibility for a

Figure 3: PSS classification according to Meier et al.,

(2005).

certain result. Ultimately, only fault-free parts are in-

voiced between the supplier and the customer (Meier

et al. 2005).

The classification approach of Meier et al. has

parallels to Tukker's concept. A major difference,

however, is the focus on the B2B market.

3.4 Classification According to Neely

Three years after Meier et al. Neely, a renowned

researcher from Cambridge University, published the

work Exploring the financial consequences of the

servitization of manufacturing (Neely 2008). This

primarily focuses on the empirical investigation of the

practical implementation of the servitisation concept

of manufacturing companies by means of practice-

oriented company data. In this context, Neely

provides a classification of PSS. The three already

known PSS types product, use and result oriented PSS

are discussed and two new PSS types are addedNeely

thus elicits five different PSS types. in a

comprehensive way, which are illustrated in Figure 4

(Neely 2008).

The five PSS types are located between pure

product and pure service and are presented one after

the other as shown in the diagram.

Product-oriented PSS: The customer is the owner

of the product by purchasing the product. In addition,

services are offered that are specifically tailored to the

product. This includes, for example, design and de-

velopment services, installation and maintenance ser-

vices as well as material procurement services. Com-

pared to integration oriented PSS, product oriented

PSS means the product is supplemented by all ser-

vices that contribute to the use of the product (Neely

2008).

Service oriented PSS: As in the previous case, the

customer owns the product by purchasing it. A char-

acteristic feature of this PSS type is the inherent ser-

vice component contained in each product. This

means that value-adding additional services are in-

cluded as an integral part of the performance offer.

Neely cites the two examples of health monitoring

systems and intelligent vehicle health management.

Compared to product oriented PSS, the service ori-

ented PSS type includes the integrated combination

of product and service for the first time (Neely 2008).

Integration oriented PSS: Product acquisition

grants the customer ownership of the product. In ad-

dition to the product, services with vertical integra-

tion are offered. Consequently, the services offered

are not directly related to the product, which makes it

possible to distinguish them from product oriented

PSS. Examples are sales and distribution strategies,

ICE-B 2019 - 16th International Conference on e-Business

financial or consulting services and logistics services

(Neely 2008).

Use oriented PSS: This PSS type has already been

described by Tukker. The focus is increasingly on the

use generated by the product. As a result, the provider

usually retains ownership of the product and only

sells the use of the product to the customer through

various forms of offering such as rental, pooling or

lease offers (Neely 2008).

Results oriented PSS: The product is increasingly

being replaced by a service. In this context, no prod-

uct is sold to the customer, but a certain result is of-

fered as a service, which the provider must fulfil.

When the result is achieved, the customer pays a fixed

monetary amount in advance (Neely 2008).

Neely's research builds on Tukker's classification

and supplements it with two further PSS types that

enable a more specific differentiation from product-

related PSS (in the sense of close to pure products).

Figure 4: PSS classification according to Neely (2008).

3.5 Classification According to

Gassmann et al.

As already argued in the introduction, PSS can ulti-

mately be seen as a special form of a business model.

For this reason, identified literature in the area of

business model innovation that has interfaces with

PSS should be considered. One name that was found

during the research in this context is Gassmann. As

Professor of Innovation Management at the renowned

University of St. Gallen and Chairman of the Institute

of Technology Management, Gassmann is mainly fo-

cused on empirical research of business models. In

2013, together with his colleagues Frankenberger and

Csik, he first published the work The Business Model

Navigator: 55 Models That Will Revolutionise Your

Business (Gassmann et al. 2013). Meanwhile pub-

lished in its second edition, Gassmann et al. contains

55 existing business model models that classify about

90 percent of all new business models, including PSS

business models. This paper intends to describe these

business models and assign these to existing PSS

classifications. In contrast to Osterwalder and Pigneur

(Osterwalder und Pigneur 2010), Gassmann et al. de-

scribe a business model in four instead of nine dimen-

sions. These are visualised in the following Figure 5

(Gassmann et al. 2017).

The four dimensions of Gassmann et al.essen-

tially contain the same contents as those of Osterwal-

der and Pigneur and are only briefly explained:

Who are our target customers? The customer is

the focus of every business model, therefore the of-

fering company has to identify the relevant customer

segments (Gassmann et al. 2017).

What do we offer the customer? This dimension

describes the promise of benefits and values that is

offered to the customer to meet his needs (Gassmann

et al. 2017).

How do we create value proposition? This in-

cludes all processes and activities that a company

must carry out in order to fulfil its promise of benefits

and values (Gassmann et al. 2017).

How is the revenue created? The fourth dimen-

sion deals with financial aspects such as the cost

structure or turnover (Gassmann et al. 2017).

Figure 5: Business model classification according to

Gassmann et al., (2013).

The 55 identified business model patterns of the

St. Gallen Business Model Navigator are based on the

concretisation of the above questions. Each business

model pattern has specific characteristics with respect

to the four questions. Several types can be identified

in the field of PSS business models:

Business model pattern 20 – Guaranteed Availa-

bility: The customer does not obtain any property

rights through the purchase of the product, instead re-

ceives a guaranteed availability and thus the use of

the product. This minimizes downtime costs, as these

are covered by the supplier through replacement

equipment, as well as repair and maintenance ser-

vices. By paying a fixed fee to the provider, the cus-

tomer receives all services necessary for the availa-

bility of the product. This pattern has parallels to Tuk-

ker’s archetype product lease (Gassmann et al. 2017).

A Systematic Literature Review on Product-Service Systems Classiﬁcations and Types

Business model pattern 35 – Pay per use: This pat-

tern is defined in analogy to Tukker’s archetype Pay

per service unit. According to this, the customer is

only charged for the effective use of a product, i.e. the

actually consumed service units. This principle en-

sures a high level of cost transparency for both the

customer and the provider.(Gassmann et al. 2017).

Business model pattern 38 – Performance-based

contracting: This pattern is a result-oriented pattern.

The customer does not pay for ownership of the prod-

uct, but on the basis of a service measured by a spe-

cific result. The supplier receives a fixed monetary

amount and in return the supplier bears all cost items

such as operating, maintenance and repair costs of the

product. In contrast to pattern 35 above, the number of

product uses for the manufacture of a service unit is not

crucial. Achieving the pre-agreed result is the ultimate

objective. A characteristic of this pattern are so-called

operator models, in which the product and the operator

personnel are to be assigned to the supplier. Similarly,

this pattern can be assigned to Tukker's archetype func-

tional results (Gassmann et al. 2017).

Business model pattern 40 – Rent instead of buy:

Instead of purchasing products, the focus here is on

product benefits through rental concepts. Due to a

more short-term rental price, the customer can gain

access to products for which acquisition costs could

not be covered. Compared to product acquisition, the

provider can access greater sales potential. In terms

of ownership rights, this model is comparable to

model 35, as only temporary ownership is assured. If

the parallel to Tukker is drawn, this design corre-

sponds to the archetype product renting/ sharing of-

fer.(Gassmann et al. 2017).

Business model pattern 47 – Solution provider:

The supplier provides a customer-specific total solu-

tion consisting of product and service. Services in-

clude, for example, consulting services or the provi-

sion of consumables and spare parts. Tukker’s arche-

type outsourcing comes close to this pattern

(Gassmann et al. 2017).

4 RESULTS

This section presents the results of literature research

on PSS classifications. The findings are presented in

two subsections. First, a condensed presentation and

classification of the individual classification ap-

proaches and their characteristics is given. This is fol-

lowed by the main part of the results, which repre-

sents the consolidation of the PSS types. These are

derived from the respective classifications and are

placed in a logical context.

4.1 Comparison of the

Classification Models

The Swedish researcher Mont was the first person

who published a scientific paper on PSS classification

in 2002. She focused on a broad approach, represent-

ing PSS concepts rather than PSS types to be consid-

ered separately. Moreover, she first mentions the two

PSS types use oriented and result oriented, but does

not specify them. Two years later the Dutch re-

searcher Tukker wrote a paper which classifies PSS

between pure product and pure service for the first

time. At the same time he describes three PSS types,

the two known types of Mont are extended by the

product oriented type. In addition, he subdivides his

three PSS types by eight so-called archetypes, which

allow a more detailed description. After a short time

the German researchers of Meier et al. publish a paper

which deals with a further PSS classification. The

special characteristic, the PSS classification is specif-

ically designed for the B2B market. In this context,

they also introduced the function oriented type. In a

later publication in 2012, he renamed the type use ori-

ented to availability oriented and redefines it. In 2008,

the British researcher Neely published an empirical

study focusing on the implementation of servitisation

in manufacturing companies. He also presents a PSS

classification based on numerous practical examples

from industry. In addition to the three known PSS

types, he introduces the service-oriented and integra-

tion-oriented PSS types. Since PSS can also be seen

as a special form of a business model, the publication

of Gassmann et al. in 2013 is to be brought into con-

nection. Five of the 55 business model patterns by

Gassmann et al. show strong parallels to five arche-

types by Tukker. In summary, the PSS classification

has continuously been developed from theory and

aligned with practice. Several points of view (holistic,

B2B market) have been taken into account and vari-

ous PSS types have been derived. These are the sub-

ject of the following section.

4.2 Consolidation of the PSS Types

This subsection contains a consolidation of the PSS

types used in the literature, which have also been ex-

tended to include the business model patterns from sec-

tion 3.5. The previous PSS classification approaches

are consolidated in Figure 6 and provide an overview

of the PSS classification types in literature. This clearly

illustrates the relationship between the PSS types and

Gassmann's business model patterns. Between pure

product and pure service, these business model patterns

tend to be characterized by a high share of service.

ICE-B 2019 - 16th International Conference on e-Business

In addition to the consolidation of PSS a further

classification between pure product and pure service

is carried out. This tabular representation contains a

generally valid definition, a meaningful example, as

well as the corresponding source of the individual

PSS types. The elements listed above are displayed in

Table 2. This table summarizes for the first time all

PSS types commonly used in the literature and pro-

vides the reader with a general overview.

The differentiation and separation of the individ-

ual PSS types appears complex, for this reason a fur-

ther tabular illustration should help. This section is

completed by a comparison of the introduced PSS

types listed and analysed below, taking various PSS

characteristics into account. The comparison is based

on the following characteristics: Responsibility for

application, affiliation of application employees,

ownership, initiation of services, affiliation of service

employees and revenue model (Leimeister 2015). The

following

Table 3 is to be used for this purpose. The PSS

type (4) use oriented has the following characteristics.

The customer is responsible for the application and

provides the corresponding application personnel.

The provider has the rights of ownership, initiates ser-

vices and provides the corresponding service person-

nel. Costs are charged for the period used.

Figure 6: Consolidation of the identified PSS types from the literature.

Table 2: Comparison of the identified PSS types from the literature.

PSS-Type

(1) Product and

function oriented

(2) Service

oriented

(3) Integration

oriented

(4) Use oriented

(5) Availability

oriented

(6) Result

oriented

Definition

In addition to the

sale of products,

services are of-

fered which guar-

antee and extend

the functionality

of the product.

The sold

product con-

tains an in-

herent ser-

vice compo-

nent

In addition to the

sale of the prod-

uct, services are

offered that ena-

ble vertical inte-

gration and do not

represent a direct

reference to the

product.

Instead of sell-

ing the product,

the use of the

product is sold

over a specific

time period

The use of the

product is also

in the fore-

ground, addi-

tionally an

agreed availa-

bility of the

product is

guaranteed.

Instead of product

acquisition, a spe-

cific result is of-

fered as a service

performance

Example

Maintenance con-

tract for a ma-

chine, supply of

consumables

Intelligent

vehicle

health man-

agement sys-

tem

Consulting or lo-

gistics services

that extend be-

yond product us-

age

Leasing or

rental offer of a

motor vehicle

Guaranteed

availability of a

machine

Provision of print-

ing equipment,

charging based on

printed pages

Source

(Tukker 2004)

(Meier et al.

2005)

(Neely 2008)

(Mont 2002)

(Tukker 2004)

(Neely 2008)

(Meier und

Uhlmann 2012)

(Meier et al.

2005)

(Mont 2002)

(Tukker 2004)

(Meier et al. 2005)

(Neely 2008)

A Systematic Literature Review on Product-Service Systems Classiﬁcations and Types

Table 3: Characteristics of the identified PSS types.

PSS-Type

(1) Product and

function ori-

ented

(2) Service

oriented

(3) Integra-

tion oriented

(4) Use ori-

ented

(5) Availability

oriented

(6) Result

oriented

Responsibility

for application

Customer

Provider

Affiliation of

application

employees

Customer

Provider

Ownership

Customer

Provider

Initiation of

services

Customer

Provider

Affiliation of

service em-

ployees

Customer

Customer/

Provider

Customer/

Provider

Revenue

model

By order

By time pe-

riod

By availability

By result

5 CONLUSION AND OUTLOOK

In summary, we can state that we can answer the ini-

tial question (RQ1) comprehensively. Out of the ex-

tensive literature research 125 publications were

identified and examined for classification, five differ-

ent approaches could be identified. This article offers

a clearly structured presentation of the individual PSS

classifications (RQ2). The majority of authors clas-

sify PSS between pure product and pure service. One

author primarily describes PSS concepts from theory,

others base their work on empirical studies with prac-

tical relevance, while others refer the PSS classifica-

tion exclusively to the B2B market. A generally ac-

cepted classification does not exist in this context, but

Tukker's work is widely acknowledged (Haase et al.

2017; Dimache und Roche 2013). In other respects,

parallels between PSS and business models have been

demonstrated. Each of the listed classifications con-

tains different PSS types (RQ3). In total, this research

enabled us to determine six different forms of PSS

types - described in the individual sections. In order

to complement this, specific forms of business model

patterns were examined for PSS content-related is-

sues. We also found five business model patterns sim-

ilar to PSS types. In a next step we succeeded in con-

solidating the identified PSS types (RQ4). In doing

so, the five business model patterns mentioned were

assigned to the PSS types. An overview table com-

pares the six PSS types. The consolidated types are

described and illustrated by a practical example. The

types are specified in a further table. There, the char-

acteristics of the PSS types are described in detail us-

ing six variables. This table shows the similarities as

well as the differences of the six mentioned PSS

types. Overall, the four research questions presented

at the entrance to this paper are answered.

This research, however, is subject to limitations.

Another PSS classification was found based on a dif-

ferent approach. The PSS classification action by van

Ostaeyen et al. (van Ostaeyen et al. 2013) uses a dif-

ferent procedure which does not allow a comparison

with the approaches explained in this paper. There-

fore, and for reasons of complexity, this approach is

not the subject of this research. A further limitation is

given by the lack of document access, as well as by

the selection of the database and the search scope.

Furthermore, the practicability of identified classifi-

cations can neither be confirmed nor criticized.

As already mentioned at the beginning, digitalisa-

tion will continue to progress. Therefore, further re-

search activities in the field of digital business models

or business models with PSS character is essential.

The present work with the literature research on the

subject of PSS is a precious foundation. The identi-

fied and described PSS types are very helpful to de-

velop a general understanding of the multi-layered

PSS topic. Changing the perspective from theory to

practice, we then plan to develop a PSS classification

framework that will enable us to analyse successful

ICE-B 2019 - 16th International Conference on e-Business

companies on the basis of defined characteristics. In

this way, success factors can be deduced. Moreover,

the PSS classification identified in RQ1 but not inves-

tigated shall be examined (having RQ2 in mind).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The Research Project “Use-PSS” is part of the focal

point of support “Middle Class Digital – Strategies

for a Digital Transformation of Business Processes”

of the German Ministry of Economics and Energy

(BMWi). This support campaign was assigned to

push the digitalization of small and medium sized en-

terprises and craft businesses.

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