<$BlogRSDUrl$>

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

New European Competitiveness Report has a good documentation on KIBS - claiming that the concept is statistically murky!
see http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/newsroom/cf/_getdocument.cfm?doc_id=7129 
pp63-78.  Discussion of servicisation pp 79-87.
Does not cite the original KIBS studies - nor the ECORYS one -
Study on Industrial Policy and Services – Part 1  (Within the Framework Contract of Sectoral Competitiveness Studies – ENTR/06/054) Rotterdam,ECORYS available at:

For a recent discussion of statistical classification see
I Miles, 2011, “From knowledge-intensive services toknowledge-intensive service systems”
in International Journal of Services Technology and Management, Vol. 16, No. 2 pp141-159







Labels: , ,


Metamanufacturing

Here is a brief introduction to this concept, prepared for a research proposal we are working on:
(since it is already in use, I would like to get its origin into prior art!):

Metamanufacturing is the integrated organisation of processes from design of products, and design of the service systems within which these products will be used and be disposed of, through to product manufacture, delivery and application in end-user environments.  “Meta-“ reflects the recognition that product manufacture is inherently linked to the upstream processes of design and the downstream processes of use.  Indeed, data about product use and performance during use will itself feed back into product design and the re-engineering of service systems (including in real time).

Among the aspects of the metamanufacturing paradigm, where we need to develop tools for analysis of its emergence in different industrial and economic contexts, and for practical design of product-service systems, are:

1)    Organisational and business model contexts – who offers what value propositions (products and associated services through the product life cycle and across service pathways) to whom, and how revenues are generated from this.  Research should examine how different types of product and service can be usefully classified and parameterised to explicate the dynamics, and inform the decisions, confronted in the settings of various organisations.

2)    Design of product-service systems.  This requirements analysis of methods currently in use, and development of new tools to provide better modelling,  for examining how product characteristics and performance, and points of contact between end-users and suppliers (“Touchpoints”), evolve alongside the use of the product over time, and across the service pathways associated with different users and environments.

3)    Requirements for data production, communication and analysis.  Sensors, recording devices, communication infrastructures, and analytic systems are all required to monitor and predict product functioning.  In addition to automated data there may be more or less complex and non-standard data inputs from human agents to take into account.

4)    Skills and human resource requirements, human-system interfaces.  In addition to design skills, both service suppliers and users may require particular types of managerial, technical and communication skills, in order to efficiently deal with routine and more challenging eventualities.  The firm may need capabilities in processing and making informed decisions on the basis of large volumes of data.  New human-machine interfaces are required to enable effective interchange between users, suppliers and the software systems associated with the product.

5)    Supply-chain and manufacturing systems.  New designs of products and product-service systems demand changes in manufacturing processes (and indeed these processes themselves may have been reshaped by the application of metamanufacturing principles in capital goods supply).  Supply chains, or more accurately value networks, are conduits for information exchange as more volume and quality of data are available on product design and performance requirements.

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?