Outlining an overall Functional Product lifecycle - Combining and coordinating its economic and technical perspectives

Currently, industry is showing increasing interest in performance-based business models. Functional Products is one such business model, where the provider offers a function to customers at an agreed-upon level of availability, productivity or efficiency, etc. A Functional Product comprises the following four main constituents: hardware, software, service support system and management of operation, which together deliver value to customers on a long-term basis. This paper, based on empirical data, provides an outline and starts the verification of a proposed overall Functional Product lifecycle combining and coordinating its economic- and technical perspectives. The perspectives are combined and the key aspects of the necessary coordination between and within the perspectives, i.e., sustainable win-win situations and coordination of sub-lifecycles for the economic perspective, and the need for coordination between the Functional Products' technical perspective's four sub-lifecycles (hardware, software, service-support system and management of operation), are elaborated and discussed. Further, addition of new functionality, contract management, and long-term management of operation are discussed in the light of managing fleets/individual customers, assets and availability. The proposed overall Functional Product lifecycle is further analyzed from a number of views and aspects.