A Literature Review to Understand the Requirements Specification's Role when Developing Integrated Product Service Offerings

This paper's objective is to analyze, based on a literature review, how existing IPSO design methods support and manage requirements when developing an IPSO. Issues analyzed are e.g. which types of aspects existing methods should consider, such as environmental issues and demands from stakeholders and customers. Another issue is what types of stakeholders are involved in the process. There is also an interest in finding out which of these methods are used in the industry. The goal is that the results will provide insight into how the requirements specification is used when developing an IPSO in theory, and in what way this insight will contribute to future studies on how companies currently derive and manage requirements when developing an IPSO.The literature review started out with the analysis of 201 papers, yielding 22 papers within the area of working with requirements for an IPSO. These papers were reviewed and summarized with the above issues and interests in mind. Findings are that when deriving requirements, existing IPSO design methods are lacking in regard to a holistic life cycle and system perspective of the offering. Few of the methods consider both requirements regarding the environmental impact of the offering and demands from all involved stakeholders, normally only the customer. Furthermore, few studies have ended with a clear work process regarding how to initially find the requirements to analyze them and later interpret them as actual metrics. There are also no signs that existing methodology is used in the industry's day-to-day work.