Collaboration for efficient upgrade agility
Changing demands resulting from new technologies and operating environments require industries to adapt in order to survive in the global market. This can be especially challenging for industries that deal with high-investment product services. Such low-volume products with long service lives need continuous upgrading to meet new needs. In addition, more environmentally friendly solutions for production and operation of industrial systems are needed to deal with issues such as the depletion of natural resources and global warming. The EU-funded project USE-IT-WISELY (Innovative continuous upgrades of high investment product-services) focused on continuous upgrade of high-investment product services. This was achieved by advancing an approach to support systematic adaptation to changing needs through development of business models and technologies. In turn, this supports collaborative efforts to sustain and improve high-investment product services. Project work relied on the assumption that efficient adaptation can be achieved through small frequent upgrade increments. They also operated under the premise that efficient upgrade agility can only be achieved through close and continuous collaboration with all involved actors. A number of basic principles were used to structure the work. These included a holistic systems view, continual improvement, flexibility, sustainable solutions and model-based systems engineering. Companies from six different industries were included in the project to ensure wide applicability of the results. For each of the six industries, a cluster was formed, consisting of two to four organisations representing parts of the value network. One organisation responsible for technical and scientific research was included in each cluster. The use cases included specific research targets. Each cluster defined a target system that was studied and developed throughout the project in a series of iterations. USE-IT-WISELY developed and tested a strategic design symbols system. The symbols system was piloted and taken into use by several organisations in different parts of the world. Potential impact of the work extends beyond the participating companies to industry at large, supporting a continuous renewal of products and services to better serve changing customer needs.
Keywords
High-investment product services, continuous upgrade, industrial systems, USE-IT-WISELY, symbols system