Modelling of a Smart Service for Consumables Replenishment – A Life Cycle Perspective

Abstract

Smart services are an approach for the IT-supported provision of services based on networked products. They enable new relationships between manufacturers and end users, as well as the establishment of new value-creation networks. To gain benefits from these potentials, service providers face the challenges of designing and managing smart services. This is mainly due to the complexity of the underlying cyber-physical system (CPS) as well as the individual life cycles of components and third-party services it consists of. Additionally, a number of actors and their tasks, various tangible and intangible benefits, as well as flows of material, information and money need to be considered during the planning and provisioning of the service. In this paper, we investigate the potential of modelling smart services with the Lifecycle Modeling Language (LML). To this end, we analyse the fulfillment of information need of different stakeholders based on a consumable material replenishment service for 3D printers.