The societal and environmental crises in recent decades have promoted a social awareness of existing challenges to sustainability. While product–service systems (PSS) are considered a promising way to achieve a sustainable future, PSS features also create barriers that hinder the widespread implementation of PSS in society. Recent studies have therefore increasingly focused on the challenges to PSS implementation. However, the existing literature fails to facilitate a strategic plan or practical guide for PSS design activity despite taking into account the importance of visioning in PSS design. This paper, therefore, proposes a strategic planning method for PSS development and implementation by combining technology roadmap and transition scenarios. To illustrate its applicability and validity, the proposed approach is applied to a PSS development project for solving wildlife damage in a suburban city of Tokyo. The case study was conducted as a participatory workshop, which involved relevant stakeholders to develop a roadmap toward a sustainable future PSS vision based on the proposed method. The result of this application demonstrates that the proposed approach enables the formulation of a long-term PSS design strategy, while comprehensively converging the perspectives and knowledge of each stakeholder participating in the PSS development.

One of the most promising business models towards economic circularity is product-service system (PSS). Despite its great potential benefits, shifting the traditional business model of a manufacturer into PSS business model commonly refers to service transition and triggers inconsistencies between strategic direction and organization arrangement at an operational level. The absence of alignment between the service transition strategy and the PSS business model is greatly emphasized as a crucial enabler, risk factor and key success factor of the service transition. However, limited academic works have concretely contributed to the strategic alignment. Through a systematic literature review, this paper proposes a PSS business alignment that enables the manufacturer to identify the strategic objective of its service transition strategy and align it with PSS business model. The theoretical version of the proposed framework is redefined and redeveloped through two cycles of action research involving 11 Japanese companies.

Servitization requires the acquisition and development of service-oriented capabilities. Research has contributed considerably to the investigation of the necessary capabilities for successful servitization and the introduction of numerous service-based capabilities. However, previous studies typically focus on proposing a general set of capabilities or processes for servitization. There is limited knowledge of how a manufacturing company can identify the necessary capabilities and plan the corresponding development actions following its servitization context. Through two phases of a case study, this research proposes a service-oriented strategy formulation method. The method supports the analysis of manufacturing companies’ servitization contexts that lead to appropriate identification of the necessary capabilities for successful servitization. This method further guides the formulation of service-oriented strategies as the strategic logic in how manufacturing companies implement servitization, including the corresponding actions to develop the required capabilities. Finally, the application in a Japanese office machinery manufacturer illustrates the applicability and usability of the proposed method in facilitating the formulation of service-oriented strategies for the servitization of manufacturing companies.

SARS-CoV-2 has become a global pandemic, causing many disruptions in multiple sectors. The World Health Organization has urged the public to wear face masks as part of the countermeasure. As the demand for face masks increased, research on the environmental sustainability of face masks production started to emerge. However, the scope of the prior studies is limited to environmental impacts during the manufacturing process. Broadening the research scope is critical to acquire a comprehensive environmental impact analysis. Therefore, this study investigates the life cycle impact assessment of disposable face mask production, from raw material extraction to the point of sale, by adopting the life cycle assessment method. Disposable face masks are assessed for a single person, over one functional unit (FU) of 30 12-h days. The ReCiPe approach was used with a Hierarchist perspective. The results reveal that disposable face mask manufacture contributes significantly to enormous environmental impact categories. As a solution, this study proposes a reconfiguration of the manufacturing process, by altering the design and material proportion of the earloop to minimise the environmental impact. The investigation indicates that the proposed design might decrease the global warming contribution, from 1.82593 kg CO₂ eq. to 1.69948 kg CO₂ eq.

A product–service system (PSS) is a concept concerning sustainability, as it offers the opportunity to decouple economic success from material consumption, thereby reducing the environmental impact of economic activities. However, researchers have identified significant barriers frequently impeding sustainability potential, which are called rebound effects. Unfortunately, the existing studies are insufficient, and there are few published studies on the actual avoidance of the rebound effect, which is a significant limitation for practical applications for decision-makers and policymakers. Therefore, this study aims to conduct a comprehensive bibliometric review of the relationship between the rebound effect and PSSs, including its drivers and mitigation strategies. This study incorporates multiple perspectives to map and analyze the landscape of rebound effect research in the context of PSSs and used 152 articles from a systematic literature review covering all publication years. Using the Scopus and Web of Science database, journals, citations, authors, and keywords were identified. This study identified the annual trend of research, listed the most influential articles, and uncovered six research topic clusters related to the rebound effect and PSSs. As an innovative feature of this study, it categorised the identified drivers based on their contextual dependencies to elucidate their interrelationships. This study also presents a categorisation of mitigation strategies based on the type of approach. This study is expected to support decision-makers and practitioners in developing sustainable PSS implementation strategies.

Perturbations have a negative influence on the operation of the business system, which may weaken business performance. However, in the field of the product–service system (PSS), perturbation is still a rarely discussed concept. Researchers and managers have a limited understanding of perturbations in the context of PSS. This hinders PSS designers and managers to prepare for mitigation due to a lack of knowledge and information. Thus, this paper aims to build a taxonomy of PSS perturbation through a systematic literature review. To achieve this target, the authors have reviewed 171 papers and found 18 effective papers. Twenty-five items are considered effective ones that are directly related to PSS perturbation. The result of the review shows that PSS perturbations could be classified into six categories, namely, behavioral, social, environmental, competence, resource, and organizational perturbations. The proposed terminology and taxonomy appear to be effective, which could enable researchers to understand the scope of PSS perturbations on a conceptual level. This finding is also expected to provide useful knowledge and information for researchers who are interested in vulnerability analysis and the robust design of PSS.