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This thesis analyzes data collection tools and methods in domestic environments for smart product development processes. The aim of the study is to create a method for supporting data collection studies in user research of smart products at domestic environments. The study examines the utilization of information and communication technologies in ethnographic data collection methods at domestic environments with a qualitative approach. Two case studies are conducted to understand and analyze the effects of custom designed data collection tools in user research studies conducted at domestic environments. The results of the study revealed that utilization of data collection equipment and methods that are customized to the characteristics of aims and objectives of user research studies, product characteristic and study participants&rsquo / own environment might lead to the possibility to increase number of study participants and decrease researchers&rsquo / presence in domestic environments. Additionally, it was found that, sensor kits and internal device logs are capable of supporting user research studies for the evaluation of products, however due to technical complexity and unpredictable contextual factors, triangulation of data collection methods and redundancy of data collection equipment are necessary.

The aim of the thesis is to find out children&rsquo / s expectations from smart products that enhance their learning and analyze their conformity with the state of art smart products and educational technologies. The developments in technology affect many dimensions including education. There are many studies that aimed to improve the learning process by the help of technology. However, the perspective of children considering this topic is almost absent in the literature. Therefore, expectations of children from learning technologies are explored via an empirical study. The state of art smart technologies and products to enhance learning will also be covered. Then, in the light of an empirical study, to what extent children&rsquo / s expectations overlap with current technologies will be presented.

Background: Service industries have grown extensively over the past few decades on the back of globalized business trends. With increasing competition, product firms are struggling on product sales alone. Hence, both products and services are being bundled into what is known as offerings. Moreover, firms are looking into how they can improve their offerings to meet customer needs with the help of smart products. Smart products are described as products able to communicate and interact with other electronic devices as well as being self aware. One of these examples is conditional monitoring whereby the product is houses built in sensors to communicate with a back end ERP system providing the supplier a transparent view and real-time update into the status and service needs for both the product and customer. Purpose: The aim of this thesis is to explore how smart products can help leverage services for product firms moving towards a service focus. Method: In addressing the purpose a case study strategy was applied. An inductive approach was used, and interviews were conducted with two Swedish manufacturers, SKF and Atlas Copco. SAP, a software provider was also interviewed. Lastly, a qualitative approach was used and secondary data was collected through annual reports, as well as public company information. Conclusions: Smart products show the capability of being able to record, transmit and act upon their behavior and usage. One major finding from the thesis is that smart products enable product firms to extend their service portfolios from a transactional to a relational standpoint through real time information feeds. This includes asset maintenance as well as monitoring and visibility into client operations. In addition, traditional product firms help product firm’s move towards a service strategy. Another finding of the thesis is that information visibility shows a positive co-relation with the service provider’s ability to take on more risk increasing service revenues and customer lock in and increase value co-creation. On the other hand smart products show to be challenging to product firms new to service development. These challenges include increasing initial infrastructure costs and high level of maintenance and complexity of the smart products.

The goal of the thesis is to provide investors and established businesses insights into the evolving concept of Internet of Things in the context of a business opportunity. First, the thesis provides comprehensive overview of the IoT concept, its historical development and relevant concepts similar to IoT including its definition and explanation. Second, the thesis discusses IoT as a disruptive technology with implications for general business strategy, current business models, value chains and competitive landscape. Third, it describes overwhelming opportunities for IoT application in various business fields and processes bringing added value to its stakeholders. Visionary concepts and applicable use cases are identified. Finally, the thesis analyses IoT market perception from both customer and business perspective based on quantitative and qualitative data researched. The research is focused mainly on customer awareness and value perception of IoT products as well as major drivers and challenges of the IoT market from business players' perspective. Such analytical insights identify major patterns and dynamism of the IoT market.

O trabalho manual com facas nos frigoríficos geram altos índices de problemas ergonômicos, sendo um fator agravante o uso de facas com afiação deficitária que prejudica sua usabilidade. O objetivo deste trabalho é desenvolver uma inovação tecnológica aplicando o conceito de Internet das Coisas na criação de produtos inteligentes que permita aos frigoríficos atender requisitos informacionais de controle e registro de afiação das facas em uso e simultaneamente, propor alternativas de modelos de negócios que gerem vantagens econômicas para a empresa focal e seus clientes. Inicialmente é relatado o processo de desenvolvimento da inovação tecnológica batizada com o nome comercial SMARTKNIVES, a qual agrega à faca características de um produto inteligente que registra e compartilha dados e interage com outros sistemas. O valor adicional da informação gerada com os dados coletados permite para a empresa focal repensar seu formato de exploração comercial da inovação desenvolvida. São propostas três alternativas de modelo de negócio no conceito de Sistema Produto-Serviço após (i) revisão da literatura acerca de modelos de negócios com uso de Internet das Coisas e inovações tecnológicas, (ii) levantamento de dados sobre consumo e custo com facas tradicionais em dois frigoríficos brasileiros e (iii) comparação dos dados no modelo tradicional versus modelos propostos com o uso dos produtos SMARTKNIVES. Como resultado, foi possível atender os requisitos informacionais e normativos para o setor de frigoríficos brasileiros e observar a possibilidade de um aumento na vida útil dos produtos inteligentes. Tal aumento, aliado às novas possibilidades de monetização e modelos de negócios tipo PSS, permitem vantagens econômicas mais vantajosas que o cenário atual. / The manual work with knives in the slaughterhouses generates high rates of ergonomic problems, being an aggravating factor, the use of knives with poor edging that hinders its usability requiring greater physical effort during the labor activity. The objective of this paper is to develop a technological innovation that helps in the solution of the problems related to the sharpening and use of knives in the slaughterhouses and that still makes possible the proposition of innovations in business models that allow economic advantages for the manufacturer and their customers. This study in a first moment (Chapter 2) reports the process of developing a technological innovation for using knives in slaughterhouses trade named SMARTKNIVES that aggregates the knife features a smart product designed to integrate the day to day problems of customers, recording and sharing data as well as interacting naturally with other systems using Internet of things. The additional value of the information resulting from this development allows the focal company to rethink its format of commercial exploitation of the developed innovation. In the second stage of this study (chapter 3) the researcher proposes three new business model possibilities in the concept of Product-Service System (PSS) after; (i) review of the literature on business models with use of Internet of Things and technological innovations, (ii) data collection on consumption and cost in two Brazilian slaughterhouses using traditional knives and (iii) comparison with the results predicted by the focal company if the slaughterers used SMARTKNIVES products. The paper concludes that the proposed objectives were achieved because the technological innovation developed helps in the problem of knife sharpening in slaughterhouses and also allows the proposition of new business models economically more advantageous than the current one.

L'Internet des Objets, dont la vision et les technologies provoquent la rencontre des mondes physique et numérique, amène aujourd'hui à la création de nouveaux types d'applications permettant d'interopérer les services du World Wide Web avec les produits du quotidien. Ces applications « orientées produit », capables de représenter, contrôler ou de compléter les fonctions d'artéfacts intégrant des capacités de traitement de l'information, remettent en cause les principes et conventions établies par les métiers de la conception. Elles préfigurent l'émergence de produits connectés à Internet, dont l'offre fonctionnelle peut être « augmentée » et modifiée au cours du temps, de manière à répondre aux besoins changeants des utilisateurs. Cette recherche, menée à l'intersection des sciences de la conception, de l'informatique ubiquitaire et des interactions homme-machine, vise à étudier les enjeux que suscitent ces applications lors la conception de produits. Elle met en exergue la nécessité d'établir un modèle descriptif des applications orientées produit facilitant leur figuration par les utilisateurs, ainsi que d'explorer les problèmes pragmatiques résultant de leur intégration dans les produits. Elle conduit également à l'élaboration et l'évaluation, par la pratique, de principes pour le design de la forme et des interactions des produits augmentés. Elle décrit plus particulièrement la ductilité de futurs produits, le nouveau rapport entre fonction, comportement et structure qu'ils établissent, et leurs possibles évolutions. Cette recherche contribue aux travaux sur l'Internet des Objets en proposant un nouveau cadre de discussion, et en offrant aux chercheurs et aux praticiens des outils qui peuvent être employés durant le processus de conception. / The Internet of Things, whose underlying vision and technologies aim at bridging the physical and digital worlds together, lead to the creation of new types of applications coupling Web services with everyday products. Such product-oriented applications, which enable the functional exposition, control or enhancement of artifacts that embed information processing capabilities, question the established design principles and conventions. They open up the possibility for Internet-enabled products, whose functions can be “augmented” and adapted to better support users' changing needs, to be designed. This research, which is at the intersection of Design Science, Ubiquitous Computing and Human-Computer Interactions, aims at studying the impact brought about by applications on product design. It highlights the need to build an application model that facilitates their representation by users, and to explore the pragmatic issues rose by their integration into products. It leads to the definition and evaluation, through practice, of principles for the design of augmented products' form and interactions. It describes the ductility of future products, the novel coupling between functions, behavior and structure they implement and their potential evolutions. This work contributes to the Internet of Things research by reframing the discussion and by providing researchers and practitioners with tools that can be leveraged during the design process.

De senaste decenniernas teknikutveckling har fört med sig många möjligheter och industriföretags produkter genererar idag stora mängder data, exempelvis bilar. Mjukvaruföretag har legat i framkant vad gäller insamling och analysering av data och industriföretag har därifrån mycket att lära sig. Syftet med detta arbete är att undersöka möjligheter och utmaningar industriföretag står inför när de samlar in data från sina produkter. Studien inleddes med en litteraturstudie vilken lade grunden för studiens syfte och problematisering. Därefter gjordes en djupare undersökning där teori och intervjustudie jämfördes. I intervjustudien deltog fyra svenska företag som alla tillverkar eller planerar att tillverka smarta produkter. Resultatet av arbetet visar på att industriföretag blir allt mer datadrivna och att de ofta gynnas av att samla in data från deras produkter. De största användningsområdena som kommer med produktgenererad data är att företag kan förstå kundbehov, övervakning av produkter samt prediktivt underhåll. Möjligheterna som kommer med detta är så pass stora att det för de flesta stora industriföretag är nödvändigt att arbeta med produktgenererad data för att bibehålla konkurrenskraft. / The technical advancements that have been made during the last decades have brought many opportunities, and the products that industrial companies are developing now generate vast amounts of data. Software companies have been leading the development of collecting and analyzing data, and industrial companies have much to learn from them. The purpose of this work is to investigate the opportunities and challenges that industrial companies face when collecting data from their products. The study was preceded by a literature review that formed the foundation of the purpose and problematization of the study. A deeper investigation was then conducted where theory and interview study were compared. Four Swedish companies took part in the interview study, and all are manufacturing or plan to manufacture smart products. The results show that industrial companies become more and more data driven and that they benefit from collecting data from their products. The biggest use cases for companies that product generated data brings are understanding of customer needs, the possibility for customer to monitor their products and predictive maintenance. The opportunities this gives are so great that it is necessary for most industrial companies to take use product generated data, in order to stay competitive.

Manufacturing firms are realising the customer value and competitive edge that can be captured through digitalisation. Manufacturing firms are therefore striving to integrate digital technologies on the existing product range to create an ecosystem of connected products to create, monitor and manage the aftermarket product services. The integration introduces multiple conflicting innovation regimes into the organisation namely product innovation and digital innovation regime. This changes the way traditional manufacturing companies work with dynamics business models and dynamic market conditions requiring a new approach to maintaining customer relationships, rethinking the organizational structure and product developmental processes. The current study focuses on the product development challenges to which the manufacturing companies are exposed while developing connected products. Physical development processes are characterised by physical materiality, long lead times, upfront planning, early binding following a linear development framework while digital innovation is characterised by digital materiality, shorter lead time, multiple launches, late bindings which follows an iterative agile model of development. The contrasting characteristics create challenges for executing physical-digital product development projects. A Swedish manufacturing company is considered as a case study company and 19 process challenges are identified and reported in the current study through interviews with 26 stakeholders from diverse functions along with secondary data observations from project interaction meetings. These challenges are prioritised and group into five overarching challenges which are lack of integrated development process, coordination issues, integration issues, knowledge gap and resources issues. Three external companies are interviewed to compare challenges in the physical-digital product development process and identify process and practices adopted by the companies to mitigate those challenges. Based on the insights from the literature study, interviews from the case company and external companies, six recommendations were proposed. The recommendations include defining clear roles and responsibilities, creating a TRL chart for connectivity, strengthen front-loading activities, developing connectivity integrated NPD process, creating a flexible framework for functions to coordinate and develop connectivity integrated testing process. / Allt fler tillverkningsföretag inser det ökade kundvärdet och konkurrenskraften som digitalisering kan medföra. Tillverkningsföretag strävar därför efter att integrera digital teknik i det befintliga produktsortimentet för att skapa ett ekosystem av digitalt uppkopplade produkter för att utforma, övervaka och hantera produkter och tjänster på marknaden. Integrationen kan skapa konflikter mellan företagets innovationsregimer i organisationen, såsom produktinnovation och digital innovationsregim. För att kunna upprätthålla kundrelationer samt omstrukturera organisationen och produktutvecklings-processerna krävs en ny strategi, eftersom integrationen förändrar hur traditionella tillverkningsföretag arbetar med dynamiska affärsmodeller och dynamiska marknadsförhållanden. Denna studie fokuserar på de utmaningar i produktutveckling somn tillverkningsföretag möter i utvecklandet av uppkopplade produkter. Utvecklingsprocesser för fysiska produkter kännetecknas av långa ledtider, planering i förväg samt tidiga beslut utifrån ett linjärt utvecklingsramverk, medans digital innovation kännetecknas av kortare ledtider, flera lanseringar, och senare beslut som följer en iterativ, agil utvecklingsmodell. Skillnaderna i utvecklingen av digitala och fysiska produkter skapar utmaningar för att genomföra fysisktdigitala produkttvecklingsprojekt. En fallstudie utfördes på ett svenskt tillverkningsföretag där 19, olika processutmaningar identifieras och rapporteras i denna studie. Studien baseras på intervjuer med 26 intressenter från olika avdelningar, samt sekundära dataobservationer från projekmöten. Utmaningarna prioriteras och grupperas i fem övergripande problemområden; utmaningar avseende samordning, integration, kunskap, respektive resurser, samt avsaknad av en integrerad utvecklingsprocess. Tre externa företag intervjuas för att jämföra utmaningar i den fysiskt-digitala produktutvecklingsprocessen samt för att identifiera processer och metoder som företagen har använt för att hantera dessa utmaningar. Baserat på litteraturstudien, intervjuer från företaget och de externa företagen föreslås sex rekommendationer. Dessa inkluderar att definiera tydliga roller och ansvarsområden, skapa ett TRL-diagram för anslutningar, stärka front-loading-aktiviteter, utveckla en integrerad produktuvtvecklings process för uppkopplade produkter samt skapa ett flexibelt ramverk för funktioner för att samordna och utveckla en integrerad testprocess för uppkopplade produkter.