Additive Manufacturing Applications in the Domain of Product Service System: An Empirical Overview

This paper is a focus study to introduce an alternative approach to the existing ones, which could be taken to implement Additive Manufacturing (AM) systems for industrial applications. This approach is mainly based on the use of Product Service Systems (PSS) concept in order to turn AM into a more relevant field for service-based purposes within industrial applications. To do so, an AM profile, which is characterized with the similar notions forming the conceptual basis of PSS is detailed, and then the profile is framed for the new service oriented approach to highlight AM's competences in this field. Having found the interconnecting links between these two concepts, the intended approach for implementation would then be discussed and further developed in more detail to include the best use cases of the previous AM case studies as a guide on how to exploit AM's capabilities in similar ways, only modified for a given industrial business which is based on service development. The use cases would also introduce a few of the most successful examples in the production-service systems which have already taken advantage of three-dimensional printing (3D printing) which is one the subcategories of AM in lower tier (desktop) applications. These customer scale applications of 3D printing alongside portfolio analysis of AM in the field of industrial services could shed light for implementing further service-centric research in the advanced manufacturing systems.