Five Models of Platform-type Product Service Systems in Manufacturing

This study proposes five kinds of game theoretic models of platform-type product service systems considering manufacturing viewpoints. Recently, manufacturing industries face a strong trend towards servicizing. One possible solution to manufacturer's servicizing is a fusional framework incorporating products and services. Such a fusional product service system is able to enhance product functionality and consumers’ satisfaction by constructing appropriate formation of them. Along with this background, our preceding study presented categorization of actual business and three basic models, especially focusing on platform-type business like smart phones, online music stores and electronic books (Nishino et al., 2012). The current study presents an extension of the models and conducts its game-theoretic analysis. Constructing five kinds of platform-type product service system models, the present study derives the theoretical equilibrium of each model. Then we discuss the characteristics of each model and manufacturers’ strategy in platform-type business.