Global challenges such as increasingly competitive markets, low-cost competition, shorter lead time demands, and high quality/value output are transforming the business model of the company to focus beyond the performance requirements. In order to meet these challenges, companies are highly concerned with the customer perceived value, which is to connect the product with the customer in a better way and become more proactive to fulfil the customer needs, via function-oriented business models and Product-Service Systems. In literature, the conceptual phase is distinguished as the most critical phase of the product development process. Many authors have recognized the improvement of design in the conceptual phase as the mean to deliver a successful product in the market. At the decision gate, where concepts are selected for further development, the design team needs knowledge/data about the long-term consequences of their early decision, to see how changes in design propagate to the entire lifecycle of the product. The main goal of the thesis is to describe how the design of Product-Service Systems in the conceptual phase can be improved through the use of a data-driven approach. The latter provides an opportunity to enhance decision making and to provide better support at the early development phase. The study highlights how data are managed and used in current industrial setting and indicates the room for improvement with current practices. The thesis further provides guidelines to efficiently use data into the modelling and simulation activities to increase design knowledge. As a result of this study, a data-driven approach emerged to support the early design decision.  The thesis presents initial descriptive study findings from the empirical investigations, showing a model-based approach that creates awareness about the value of a new design concept, thus acting as a key enabler to use data in design. This will create a link between the product engineering characteristic to the high-level attributes of customer satisfaction and provider’s long-term profitability. The preliminary results indicate that the application of simulation models to frontload the early design stage creates awareness about how performance can lead to value creation, helping multidisciplinary teams to perform quick trade-off and what-if analysis on design configurations. The proposed framework shows how data from various sources are used through a chain of simulations to understand the entire product lifecycle. The proposed approach holds a potential to improve the key performance indicators for Product-Service Systems development: lead time, design quality, cost and most importantly deliver a value-added product to the customer.

This master thesis has been performed in association with Blekinge Institute of Technology and in collaboration with the company Dynapac Compaction Equipment AB. The thesis aims to investigate how Discrete Event Simulation (DES) can be used for value and sustainability design concept assessments in early design stages. The research is made by investigating the example of simulating the lifecycle of a double drum asphalt compactor. The model is created in the computerbased DES software Simio LLC, where the captured data of the compactor´s lifecycle performances are linked to a Net Present Value (NPV) model and a sustainability assessment. The model is then further explored and evaluated in the Decision Arena, located at Blekinge Institute of Technology.  The simulated model is created to approach a ‘lifelike’ lifecycle of the machine, containing the compactor´s ordinary usage in road construction. This includes operations in sidewalk, parking lot and pothole repair scenarios. The model contain service, maintenance, transport, workers, resource sharing and more. The model is connected to MS Excel to transfer data. The life cycle performances are captured in the model and used to estimate the cost parameters of energy -, water -, maintenance -, service - and transportation energy cost within the NPV model. The CO2 – emission for fuel consumption and transport, together with the total water consumption in the sustainability assessment.  The outcome of the thesis showed that the method gave good results for developing new design configurations in the early phases in product development. The method could support designing towards sustainable and long-term solutions and collaborations over the sectors (i.e. between stakeholders, engineers, designers, non-experts and more). The outcome in the specific case resulted in successfulness of capturing all lifecycle performances of the machine and linking them to the mentioned parameters. The research question is, however, generic and the investigation for the specific case study uses assumptions and up- and down scaled data to protect the company secrecy. For future work, the method together with Internet of Things (IoT), Digital Twin or Industry 4.0 could be in high interest to investigate further. / Detta examensarbete har blivit utfört i association med Blekinge Tekniska högskolan och i samarbete med företaget Dynapac Compaction Equipment AB. Syftet med projektet är att undersöka hur diskret händelsesimulering (DES) kan användas för värde - och hållbarhets bedömning för olika designkonfigurationer, i tidiga skeden av produktutvecklingen. Arbetet är utfört genom att tillämpa exemplet av att simulera livscykeln för en asfaltsvält med dubbla trummor. Simuleringsmodellen är framställd genom det databaserade DES programmet Simio LLC, där utdata för maskinens livscykelprestanda tas fram och kopplas till en Net Present Value (NPV) modell och en hållbarhetsdömning för maskinen. Simuleringsmodellen utforskas och bedöms sedan vidare i ’Decision Arena’ på Blekinge Tekniska Högskola.  Den simulerade modellen är framställd för att eftersträva en verklighetstrogen livscykel av maskinen, innehållande dess vanliga användningsområden inom vägarbete. I livscykeln inkluderas operationer av trottoarer, parkeringsplatser och reparationer av hål i vägbanor. Modellen innehåller även service och underhåll, transport, arbetare/anställda, resursdelning med mera. Modellen är kopplad till MS Excel för att föra över in- och utdata mellan programmen. Maskinens livscykelprestanda är hämtat från modellen och använt till att uppskatta kostnadsparametrarna för energi, vatten, underhåll, service och energi under transport i NPV – modellen. Maskinens CO2 – utsläpp för bränsleförbrukning och transport, tillsammans med vattenkonsumtionen i hållbarhetsbedömningen. Arbetet visar på goda resultat för att utveckla nya desginkonfigurationer i de tidiga skedena inom produktutveckling. Metoden kan stödja utformning mot hållbara och långsiktiga lösningar, samt förstärka samarbeten över sektorerna (dvs. mellan intressenter, ingenjörer, designers, icke-experter med mera). Utfallet för det specifika fallet resulterade i framgång med att fånga upp maskinens livscykelprestanda och koppla dessa till de ovan nämnda parameterana. Forskningsfrågan är dock generell och utredningen för den specifika fallstudien använder uppskattningar och upp- och nerskalade data för att skydda företagets sekretess. För framtida arbete, kan metoden tillsammans med Internet of Things (IoT), Digital Twin och Industry 4.0 vara av stort intresse för att undersöka.