Simulation-Based Risk Management of Product-Service Systems

Products are increasingly accompanied by services such as maintenance or leasing contracts. The share of services of these so-called product-service systems (PSS) is expected to gain. The provider of such PSS-related services needs a comprehensive knowledge of the product properties and service requirements -particularly the product reliability and availability as well as necessary service resources - in order to minimize its financial risk. Hence, powerful methods need to be applied to the risk management of these services. The reliability and maintenance simulation offers a great potential for the risk management of PSS-related services. The presented powerful modeling methods are able to consider various product and service parameters which are compared in an overview. The conjoint system model yields the maximum modeling power and is able to consider manifold dependencies and reciprocal effects. The Monte Carlo simulation is the established method for the analysis of the operational parameters. A wide range of applications can be covered, considering the complexity as well as the field of application. The analyzed operational parameters are an integral base for the risk management of PSS-related services as they enable to evaluate the financial risks. The application of fundamental operational parameters to the risk evaluation of several exemplary PSS-related services is summarized. It is explained how the risk management process is integrated into the different stages of the PSS life cycle. Several risk measures which are common in finance are applied to the risk evaluation. The capability of the method is demonstrated by an example: The risk management of a maintenance contract for a production line with guaranteed maximum maintenance time including a bonus malus system.