Course syllabus
Course PM - PPU231 - Production and product service systems - VT2025
7,5 Credits
Course in Master Programme:
Production Engineering
Product Development
Course Team
1. Purpose and aim of the course
In today’s society, there is a clear trend towards servitization. New services, business models, and strategies for bringing added value to products are emerging. Cars and aerospace engines are leased, and more companies are selling services rather than physical products. This development has increased the pressure on manufacturing companies to ensure that their products can be easily maintained and upgradeable in order to fulfill their functions over an extended life span. In particular, this development is driven by the fact that when a service is sold, the company is assuming responsibility for the product and its associated risks. To remain profitable after a shift from selling products to services, companies are forced to improve their risk management and develop Product Service Systems where potential risks are managed in all life-cycle stages.
Manufacturing companies must also ensure competitiveness by achieving high production system performance. In fact, to be able to fulfill high and rapidly changing customer demands, today’s production systems need to be highly flexible and efficient. Maintenance organizations play a central role in achieving high production performance, and the role of maintenance is increasing in line with the development towards more complex and automated production. Therefore, maintenance organizations must assume a larger responsibility beyond the traditional confines of fixing machines when they are broken or preventing them from becoming broken again. To adopt this new role, maintenance organizations in manufacturing companies must Production Service Systems where potential risks are managed in all life cycle stages. In fact, maintenance is a particularly high-risk activity in industry, where maintenance workers are exposed to a large variety of safety risks on a daily basis.
Therefore, this course aims at providing an in-depth understanding of Production and Product Service Systems. In particular, it focuses on designing, developing and evaluating production systems or products from a servitization perspective, and understanding its implications on the manufacturing industry. Further, the course aims to provide an understanding of how Production and Product Service Systems can add value to production systems or products throughout the whole life-cycle.
Maintenance is a central part of Production and Product Service systems, and this course therefore aims at providing theoretical and practical knowledge about both prevailing and future maintenance concepts. Further, a prerequisite for realizing Production and Product Service Systems is a thorough understanding of risk and safety. This course aims to provide such an understanding from a life-cycle perspective, which includes risk and safety concepts and practical use of engineering tools to achieve economical, ecological, and social sustainability.
E-bike Inc.
This course revolves around E-bike Inc., which is a manufacturer and provider of electric bikes for city environments (E-bikes). The market for high-end E-bikes is growing rapidly and the company must adapt to these changes in order to remain competitive in the future. Throughout the entire course, the students will gain the theoretical and practical knowledge necessary to transform the company from the current state to a desired future state. This includes developing Product Service System solutions for the E-bike product line as well as improving the production system performance in order to satisfy requirements on increased production volume and production rate.
An extended description of the E-bike Inc. case will be made available during the course in the specific projects.
2. Learning objectives
After the course, the students should be able to:
- LO1: Describe and apply risk and safety concepts and use engineering tools to analyze, evaluate, and reduce risks;
- LO2: Explain, implement and distinguish various prevailing maintenance concepts;
- LO3: Recognize and evaluate future maintenance concepts;
- LO4: Interpret, describe and evaluate Production and Product Service Systems;
- LO5: Demonstrate how existing production systems or products can be designed, developed and provided as Production or Product Service Systems;
- LO6: Differentiate, select and develop actions to improve production systems or products during the whole life-cycle.
3. Course content and organization
The course covers the following topics:
- Theoretical basics of risk and safety;
- Engineering tools for analyzing, evaluating, and reducing risks;
- Prevailing and future maintenance concepts;
- Theory and practice of Production and Product Service Systems;
- Systematic approach for improving production systems or products during the whole life-cycle.
The course follows a problem-oriented pedagogy, and consists of lectures, a project, and workshops within the students’ area of interest. The learning activities are:
- Lectures: By providing theoretical foundation and support for project work;
- Project: By applying skills learned throughout the course to improve productions systems or products during the whole life-cycle;
- Workshops: By reflecting and discussing the implications of production and product solutions;
- Presentation: By being able to present and defend project results to industrial stakeholders.
4. Examination
The course examination is based on two parts: knowledge test and project work. The final grade includes the students’ performance on the tasks, as follows:
- Individual knowledge test (maximum 30 points, 15 points to be approved). Approved knowledge test is necessary to pass the course and achieve a final grade;
- Graded report/presentation from project (maximum 70 points).
All points are summarized and the final grade is decided accordingly (total sum cannot surpass 100):
- 0-49 points = Fail
- 50-65 points = 3
- 66-85 points = 4
- 85-100 points = 5
Further details about each examination form are described below.
4.1 Knowledge test
Date: 2025.02.07, 15.45-17.00 (arrive latest 15.15 at the local), Friday, rooms are SB-D509 and SB-L216.
Practical information
The knowledge test will be a digital examination using Inspera. Please read the instructions here. Important to keep in mind:
- You are automatically registered for the examination, so you do not need to register in Ladok.
- You are expected to bring your laptop to the test (make sure to downloads SEB and test Inspera as explained here). If you cannot do that, please inform the course examiner and assistant before 26th of January (do not book directly with the examination administration).
- If you are a student with any functional variations/disabilities, you are entitled longer time for the exam. Please let the course examiner and assistant know about that before 26th of January.
Test information
The student needs to pass the test in order to be approved in the course and achieve a final grade. A minimum of 15 points is required to pass the test. The overall points from the test are included in the total grade on each student’s performance. If the student fails the knowledge test, a re-test needs to be performed in order to pass the course and achieve a final grade. The re-tests are booked with the course examiner and assistant.
The knowledge test covers the content in the first two weeks of the course (i.e., until 2025.02.03) and related literature below:
- Risk management & reliability,
- Servitization in industry, theory and service design,
- Maintenance concepts & maintenance management,
- Integrated product and production system development.
Specifically, the knowledge test will be based on the Lectures, Reading materials (see 5. Literature), and Maintenance and risk management assignment that are covered from the beginning of the course up to 2025.02.03.
The test will consist of 15 multiple-choice questions (no essay questions as in previous years).
4.2 Project work
The project work aims at applying the skills throughout the course to understand and implement Production and Product Service Systems. Two projects are included in the course, dependent on the students’ interest and programme area: one production-oriented and one product-oriented project.
The production-oriented project is aimed at improving the performance of E-Bike Inc.’s production system to ensure the company’s overall productivity and profitability by applying Production Service activities.
The product-oriented project is aimed at designing and evaluating a Product Service System (PSS) for the E-bike product line, covering the identification of value and functionality, formulating and evaluating alternative PSS concepts, and propose a candidate PSS solution (mix of product and service).
More information about the content of the projects will be provided during the course in the Product project module and the Production project module.
Forming of project groups
The maximum number of people allowed in each group is 5 people (at least 4 in each group is recommended). The students are allowed to form their own groups until Monday, 2025.02.03. To do so, go to "Groups" in "People", and sign up for a group. NOTE: there are Product and Production groups - make sure to sign up for the right one! If you have any problem, contact the course assistant. If necessary, students can be assigned to groups by the examiner / course assistant.
A maximum of 70 points can be reached based on the project report/presentation. The grade of the project applies to all the members of the group. For this reason, it is important that the workload is fairly split and the level of ambition negotiated ahead.
Each group should define how to communicate internally using the digital solutions or any other tools that better suits the group's needs.
Project workshops + workshop report
During the project, you will perform two joint workshops. More information concerning the workshops will be made available during the course. Participation in both workshops is mandatory.
Date: 2025.02.13, 10.00-11.45, Thursday
Examination: Mandatory participation
Date: 2025.02.27, 10.00-11.45, Thursday
Examination: Mandatory participation
Mandatory group activities during the project
- Upload the draft project report at Canvas before 2025.03.07 at 23.59.
- Upload the Power-Point presentation slides at Canvas before 2025.03.12 at 23.59.
- Upload the written opposition report at Canvas before 2025.03.11 at 23.59.
- Upload the final report as a .pdf document at Canvas before 2025.03.22 at 23.59.
4.3 Additional individual mandatory activities during the course
There are five additional mandatory activities during the course:
- Pass on the “Maintenance and risk management assignment” (W5);
- Active participation in Workshop 1 (W7);
- Active participation in Workshop 2 (W9);
- Active participation in the project seminar/presentation (W11);
- Active participation in two MANDATORY supervision sessions (W7 and W10);
5. Literature
- Power-point presentations available during the course in the Lectures' module.
Note: Literature for the project work is specified in the separate project PMs.
- Paper 1. Tukker, A., Van den Berg, C., & Tischner, U. (2006), ”Product-services: a specific value proposition”, New business for old Europa: product-service development, competitiveness and sustainability, Greenleaf, Sheffield, pp. 22-34.
- Paper 2. Ylipää, T., Bokrantz, J., Skoogh, A. & Gopalakrishnan, M. (2017), “Identification of maintenance improvement potential using OEE assessment”, International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, vol. 66, no. 1.
- Paper 3. Mobley, K. (2008), “Impact of Maintenance”, Maintenance Fundamentals, McGraw-Hill.
- Paper 4. Pintelon, L. & Parodi-Herz, A. (2008), “Maintenance: An Evolutionary Perspective”, Complex Systems Handbook, Springer, London.
- Paper 5. Bokrantz, J., Skoogh, A., Berlin, C. and Stahre, J. “Maintenance in Digitalised Manufacturing: Delphi-based scenarios for 2030”, International Journal of Production Economics, vol. 191, pp. 154-169.
- Paper 6. Isaksson, O., Larsson, T., & Öhrwall, A. (2009), “Development of product-service systems: challenges and opportunities for the manufacturing firm”, Journal of Engineering Design, vol. 20(4), pp. 329-348.
- Paper 7. Shostack, G. L. (1982). How to design a service. European journal of Marketing. Vol. 16 Issue: 1,pp.49-63
- Paper 8. Vandermerwe & Rada (1988) Servitization of Business: Adding Value by Adding Services. European Management Journal. Volume 6 No 4.
- Paper 9. Weibull Analysis. Reliability: A Practitioner’s Guide.
- Paper 10. Baines et al. (2008) Servitization of manufacturing.
- Chapters from the book (see below): Harms-Ringdal, L. (2013) Guide to safety analysis for accident prevention, Springer: IRS Riskhantering.
- You can download the book from this link.
5.1 Reading directions
Reading directions for lectures are to be found in the tables below (note that not all activities have reading directions).
Reading directions: lectures
| Read before |
Lecture |
Reading |
|
Production and Product Service Systems |
||
|
Thursday, 2025.01.23 |
Servitization in industry |
Paper 1 |
|
Thursday, 2025.01.23 |
Production Service Systems |
Paper 2 |
|
Friday, 2025.01.24 |
Servitization theory and service design |
Paper 7, Paper 8, and Paper 10 An extra reading on this link. |
|
Thursday, 2025.02.03 |
Integrated product and production system development |
Paper 6 |
|
Risk Management and Safety |
||
|
Monday, 2025.01.27 |
Basic principles of risk and safety (Risk management and and safety) |
Ch 3.1 (From book "Guide to safety analysis for accident prevention") |
|
Monday, 2025.01.27 |
Risk Management Methodology (Risk management and and safety) |
Ch 3.2, 3.4 (From book "Guide to safety analysis for accident prevention") |
|
Monday, 2025.01.27 |
Risk Management Tools (Risk management and and safety) |
Ch 4.3-4.4, 5.4 (overview) 10.1-10.3, 10.7 (FTA) 12.2 (FMEA), 15.5 (choosing tools) (From book "Guide to safety analysis for accident prevention") |
|
Maintenance Management |
||
|
Thursday, 2025.01.23 |
The future of maintenance management (Production service systems) |
Paper 5 |
|
Thursday, 2025.01.30 |
Maintenance fundamentals (Maintenance concepts) |
Paper 3, Paper 9 |
|
Thursday, 2025.01.30 |
Maintenance concepts |
Paper 4 |
Reading directions: project
Reading directions for the project work are specified in the project PMs.
6. Preliminary Schedule PPU231 2025
Bellow you can find the schedule for lectures and supervision in this course. NOTE: there are specific lectures for production / product groups! They are marked in orange / green. All other lectures apply to all students.
|
W |
Time |
Activity |
Resp. |
Room |
|
4 |
Introduction week |
|
||
|
Monday, 2025.01.20, 13.15-15.00 |
Introduction to servitization and digitalization Introduction to E-bike Inc. Course plan and administration |
TY, OI, GD, ETB |
HC3 |
|
|
Thursday, 2025.01.23, 08.00-09.45 |
Servitization in industry |
OI |
HC2 |
|
|
Thursday, 2025.01.23, 10.00-11.45 |
Production service systems |
TY |
HC2 |
|
|
Friday, 2025.01.24, 15.15-17.00 |
Servitization theory and service design |
GD |
HC3 |
|
|
5 |
Risk Management and Maintenance week |
|
||
|
Monday, 2025.01.27, 13.15-15.00 |
Risk management and safety |
TY |
HC3 |
|
|
Monday, 2025.01.27, 15.15-17.00 |
Self-study time (theory) |
--- |
--- |
|
|
Thursday, 2025.01.30, 08.00-09.45 |
Maintenance concepts |
TY |
KA |
|
|
Thursday, 2025.01.30, 10.00-11.45 |
Maintenance and risk management assignment (submit until 2025.02.07) |
--- |
--- |
|
|
6 |
Guest lectures, PSS and Project work week #1 |
|
||
|
Monday, 2025.02.03, 13.15-15.00
|
Integrated product and production system development |
GD |
HC3 |
|
|
Monday, 2025.02.03, 15.15-17.00 |
Project introduction |
TY, OI, GD, ETB |
HC3 | |
|
Thursday, 2025.02.06, 08.00-09.45 |
Maintenance policy using RCM (Production groups only!) |
Zeynab Allahkarami |
ML-11 |
|
|
Value and stakeholder assessment (Product groups only!) |
OI |
ML13 |
||
|
Thursday, 2025.02.06, 10.00-10.45
|
Sustainable circle – Smart Maintenance |
Henric Widen |
HC2 |
|
|
Friday, 2025.02.07, 15.45-17.00 Arrive latest 15:15 at the room |
Knowledge test (MANDATORY- Bring your laptop) |
-- |
SB-D509 and SB-L216 |
|
|
7
|
Dugga and project work week #2 |
|
||
|
Monday, 2025.02.10, 13.15-15.00 |
Priority-based maintenance (Production groups only!) |
TY |
HC2 |
|
|
Monday, 2025.02.10, 15.15-17.00 |
Self-study |
--- |
--- |
|
|
Thursday, 2025.02.13, 08.00-09.45 |
Self-study |
--- |
--- |
|
|
Thursday, 2025.02.13, 10.00-11.45 |
Joint workshop 1 (MANDATORY) |
TY, GD |
EL41 and EL42 |
|
|
Friday, 2025.02.14, 15.15-17.00 |
MANDATORY supervision on project work - more details will be available on Canvas. | TY, GD | TBD | |
|
8 |
Project work week #3 |
|
||
|
Monday, 2025.02.17, 13.15-15.00 |
Guest lecture - Service Design |
Erik Swan | HC3 | |
|
Monday, 2025.02.17, 15.15-17.00 |
Data-driven decision-making in maintenance |
ETB | ML11 | |
|
Thursday, 2024.02.20, 08.00-09.45 |
Life cycle cost analysis (Product groups only!) |
GD |
EB |
|
|
Thursday, 2024.02.20, 10.00-11.45 |
Guest Lecture - Professional maintenance at AB Volvo |
Anderson Leal |
EB |
|
|
Friday, 2025.02.21, 15.15-17.00 |
OPTIONAL Online supervision for "PRODUCTION GROUPS" - send an email to the supervisor in advance (at least one day) and set the time for the supervision meeting (Production groups --> TY)
MANDATORY supervision for "PRODUCT GROUPS" - more details will be available on Canvas. |
TY, GD |
Online + M Room Beta |
|
|
9
|
Project work week #4 |
|
||
|
Monday, 2025.02.24, 13.15-15.00 |
Production service improvements (Production groups only!) |
TY |
EL41 |
|
|
Monday, 2025.02.24, 15.15-16.00 |
Guest lecture |
Adriana Ito |
Zoom + HC3 |
|
|
Thursday, 2025.02.27, 08.00-09.45 |
Project Work |
--- |
--- |
|
|
Thursday, 2025.02.27, 10.00-11.45 |
Joint workshop 2 (MANDATORY) |
TY, GD | EL41 and EL42 | |
|
Friday, 2025.02.28, 15.15-16.00 |
PSS cost benefit (Product groups only!) |
GD |
ML-11 |
|
|
Friday, 2025.02.28, 16.15-17.00 |
OPTIONAL online supervision - send an email to the supervisor in advance (at least one day) and set the time for the supervision meeting (Product groups --> GD, Production groups --> TY) |
TY, GD |
Online |
|
|
10 |
Project work week #5 |
|
||
|
Monday, 2025.03.03, 13.15-17.00 |
Project work |
-- |
-- |
|
|
Thursday, 2025.03.06, 08.00-08.45 |
Project work
|
--- |
--- |
|
|
Thursday, 2025.03.06, 09.00-11.45 |
MANDATORY supervision on project work- more details will be available on Canvas. |
TY, GD | M Room Gamma and M Room Beta | |
|
Friday, 2025.03.07, 15.15-17.00 |
Project work |
--- |
--- |
|
|
11 |
Project finalization |
|
||
|
Monday, 2025.03.10, 13.15-17.00 |
Project work |
--- |
--- |
|
|
Thursday, 2025.03.13, 09.00-11.45 |
Project seminar (MANDATORY) |
TY, ETB, OI, GD |
HC1 and HC2 |
|
TY – Torbjörn Ylipää, OI – Ola Isaksson, GD – Giliam Dokter, ETB – Ebru Turanoglu Bekar
You can check location of rooms from the link here https://maps.chalmers.se/#a85a8be2-4ff6-4e39-9880-c2adb2a7626f
(***) Specific dates have been set for MANDATORY and OPTIONAL supervisions related to the project work. For MANDATORY supervisions, the schedule, including details such as time and location for each group, will be provided in advance on Canvas. OPTIONAL online supervisions are demand-based meetings. If a group wishes to meet with the supervisors, it is the group’s responsibility to contact them and arrange the details of the digital meeting in advance.
--- There are specific dates that the group is supposed to work by itself. If you have a specific question, you can contact your supervisor via email. If necessary, an additional meeting can be booked.
The activities matrix shows the connections between course elements. Each learning objective is connected to the learning activities and assessment tasks throughout the course.
| Learning objectives / Activity |
LO1 | LO2 | LO3 | LO4 | LO5 | LO6 |
| Introduction lecture | X | |||||
| Servitization in industry lecture | X | X | X | |||
| Production service systems lecture | X | X | ||||
| Servitization theory and service design lecture | ||||||
| Risk management and safety lecture | X | X | X | X | ||
| Maintenance fundamentals lecture | X | X | ||||
| Maintenance concepts lecture | X | X | X | |||
| Maintenance exercise | X | X | X | |||
| Production service systems (future of maintenance) lecture | X | X | ||||
| Development of product service systems lecture | X | X | X | |||
| Integrated product and production development lecture | X | X | X | X | ||
| Written knowledge test | X | X | X | X | X | X |
| Workshops | X | X | X | X | X | X |
| Project | X | X | X | X | X | X |
| Presentation | X | X | X |
8. Student Representatives
All Chalmers courses have student representatives who are expected to take part in a start-up meeting, one meeting in the middle of the course, and the final course evaluation meeting in the study period after the course where thoughts and impressions about the course are shared. The course representatives for PPU231 VT25 have been randomly selected and consist of:
Cornelia Falkhage, falkhagecornelia@gmail.com
Henrik Fridh, henrik99@hotmail.com
Jonatan Liesén Gullmander, jongul@student.chalmers.se
Erik Punt, 21erik.punt@gmail.com
Course summary:
| Date | Details | Due |
|---|---|---|