Knowledge Evaluation for PSS Providers

Manufacturing companies being within the transformation process into a product-service system (PSS) provider face the challenge that they have to build up knowledge for successfully providing services. This paper presents an approach for evaluating the knowledge within a company and to specify the required knowledge for providing a specific PSS. Based on that, the knowledge gap can be derived. The basis are Multiple-Domain Matrix (MDM) based knowledge maps that model employees of the companies, their tasks as well as the knowledge required for fulfilling the tasks. This paper contributes furthermore by enhancing the MDM-based knowledge maps by assessing knowledge levels. The approach is illustrated in a case study within a company of the mechanical engineering sector.