Harnessing prognostics health management and product-service systems interaction to support operational decisions

Purpose - Prognostics and health management (PHM) can support product-service systems (PSS) contracts, especially in the case of high technology products where their condition and performance can be monitored. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how PHM can support effective execution of some PSS contracts and to set out the future research agenda for the development of an online simulation modelling framework that will further harness the interaction between PHM and PSS. Design/methodology/approach - The research methodology commenced by collating facts and figures from the existing body of knowledge, from which a set of key findings is presented from both technical and business perspectives. Analysis of the key findings highlights the current state of PHM-PSS interaction, the capability of existing tools and techniques and a comprehensive analysis of PSS performances, with and without PHM. Findings - Increased demand for total asset performance from the customers has been the main driver for PSS providers to adopt PHM technology. In the case of high value assets, PHM is used to capture the condition of the assets and to feed this information back to the PSS operations management which, in turn, will be used to plan a maintenance regime, spare parts provision, as well as to mitigate the dynamic behaviour which commonly occurs in PSS. Simulation modelling, driven by asset health condition, shows a considerable potential as an effective tool to control the execution of the PSS contract. In addition to the benefits from the maintenance services, the PHM-PSS interaction can increase the controllability of the PSS contract execution and allow future modifications to PSS contracts. Originality/value - The value of this paper lies in the comprehensive analysis of the interaction between PHM and PSS, especially focusing on the interaction during the PSS contract execution. This paper demonstrates the strengths and weaknesses of existing research in the research domain, and highlights the opportunities for future research.