Exploring the Barriers to sustainable product service system adaptation in the manufacturing industry

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to examine the barriers which appear while implementing sustainable product service system in the manufacturing industry for their non-assembled products both from the perspective of customers and providers. Additionally it is been explore that to how the manufacturing companies can handle these barriers. The study is based on exploratory case-based study method with an abductive approach. 25 interviews were conducted from the individuals of different manufacturing industries and the nature of interview was qualitative. The interviews were split into two parts, the first phase was based on exploratory interviews and the second phase was based on semi-structured interviews, the accumulated data then analyzed with the proposed thematic analysis. The primary findings of this study is divided into five different overarching categories among which three categories were originated from the interview of provider’s perspective and other two from the customer perspective. The provider categories are: Features of manufacturing industry, customer and market awareness and exclusive information required, whereas the categories of customer comprises of fundamental management practices and customers’ perspective of servitization. The findings of the study suggest that some theories in literature review cannot be transferred to products that are not assembled. Later, the study provide the clarity about how multiple barriers could be managed which are absent from the today’s literature of PSS