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In the last 20 years, e-waste has become a serious issue resulting from an overwhelming amount of electronics consumption. However, there has been limited research on how to decrease such waste in a structured manner. Toward study was to use a simulation methodology to investigate the dynamics of upfront investment in reliability enhancement promoted by performance-based contracting (PBC), based on the number of spare parts and duration of the contract.

The present research first details the relevant mathematical equations and uses game theory to demonstrate the utility for supplier and buyer relationships. Next, the effects of reliability enhancement, spare partsPBC are analyzed using a BlockSim simulation model.

The results indicate strong relationships among system design cost, reliability, availability and service cost. The authors found that investment in reliability increases system availability while reducing total service costs. Furthermore, increasing the spare parts inventory was determined to have less influence on the readiness of highly reliable systems. The findings support the notion that PBC reduces e-waste by increasing system availability, incentivizing upfront investment in reliability growth.

Recognition of these findings in the context of buyer–supplier relationships will help managers better understand the value of upfront reliability investment, reducing maintenance, repair and overhaul requirements, avoiding the need to plan for extra spare parts and minimizing volume and the resulting e-waste.

This study also clarifies the uncertainty associated with upfront investment and provides potential incentives for suppliers.

The main contribution of this study is its use of PBC for e-waste reduction, highlighting the effects of upfront investment in reliability enhancement. The authors applied a game theory model to illustrate the relationship between incentives and upfront investment and demonstrate how increased levels of spare parts can be counterproductive to achieving readiness, reducing inventory and consequent e-waste.

In the light of challenges experienced in cost estimation at the bidding stage of complex engineering services in the defence industry (e.g. contracting for availability), the purpose of this paper is to present a framework to manage the influence of uncertainty on cost estimates.

The research applied the Soft Systems Methodology and benefitted from interaction with four major organisations in the defence industry through document sharing, semi-structured interviews, workshops, and case studies.

The framework is composed of seven stages to plan, identify, prioritise, classify, and manage cost uncertainties. Through the validation of three case studies some of the key benefits of the framework were realised in project planning, uncertainty visualisation, and capability management.

The research has been applied in the defence sector in the UK and focuses on the bidding stage. Further research needs to be applied to confirm that the findings are applicable across industries and across the life cycle.

The paper builds on the theory behind risk and uncertainty management and proposes an innovative framework that avoids the assumption of “perfect” knowledge by raising questions about the validity of the input data.

As enterprises focus on offering integrated product/service bundles, performance‐based contracts become ever so important in ensuring effective delivery. Performance‐based contracts fall under the result‐oriented category of industrial product service systems (PSSs). The paper aims to present a conceptual framework for operations strategy in performance‐based industrial PSSs that will help manufacturing companies configure their operations to support effective delivery of integrated product/service offering.

This paper first develops a conceptual framework for operations strategy in performance‐based contracts by identifying the key elements after a detailed systematic review of literature. A major shift in support and maintenance logistics for complex engineering systems over the past few years has been observed in the defence and aerospace industries. Availability contracting, a special type of performance‐based contracts, is replacing traditional service procurement practices. Two exploratory case studies involving defence availability contracts are conducted for making inferences regarding the operations strategy.

The important findings of this research are a set of elements of operations strategy guiding the development of a conceptual framework, a set of operating principles and processes supporting effective delivery of performance‐based service contracts.

The true value of this research is to open up the novel area of result‐oriented industrial PSSs operations strategy by capturing the key characteristics of operations using both literature and empirical evidence.

The aim of the paper is to identify and review the impact and challenges of new contractual arrangements on UK military procurement and other limited or oligopolistic markets.

The unit of analysis is the large-scale procurement programme. Two cases of major military platforms (naval and air defence) examine through-life maintenance or “contracting for availability” and build theory on procuring complex performance (PCP). Propositions are developed from the literature then tested and extended from the case analysis, supported by 35 interviews from buyer and supplier representatives.

Examining UK military platform procurement reveals a perspective not present in fast moving high volume supply chains. In oligopolistic markets such as defence, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) represents a market of one, seeking ambitious and non-incremental innovation from the prime contractor during the procurement process. The new contractual arrangements show an increasing shift in responsibility to the prime contractor who coordinates service support and supply chain incentivisation over extended, often multi-decade platform lifecycles.

The cases were conducted separately and later compared. Whilst based on defence sources, the paper concludes with general recommendations for all public-private complex procurements and seeks to explore other industry sectors as part of further research into PCP.

Examined from a theoretical and practical perspective, the cases reveal the challenges facing procurement in major public-private projects. The changing role identified reflects extended timescales and the quasi-market military procurement environment, compounded by current economic and politically charged conditions. Procurement by default increasingly plays a new shaping role in large-scale programme management driven by outcome-based contracting. Customers such as the MOD must re-evaluate their role under these new contractual arrangements, providing leadership and engaging with future contracting capability and innovation.

This case study aims to explore the risks and challenges associated with the implementation of outcome‐based contracts (OBCs) in maintenance, repair and overhaul services in the defence industry. It also aims to identify ways to address and reduce them.

The case study approach was used to capture the dynamics of OBCs in B2B service delivery. The challenges and risks were explored using qualitative approaches such as in‐depth interviews, and findings were abstracted through grounded theory. The factors identified from the above findings were structured in a survey and validated using simple descriptive statistics.

This study identified the challenges and risks of implementing OBCs, which include complexity and unpredictability of costs, dependability on customer in delivering the service and cultural change from traditional setting. Although the survey results revealed 11 factors that could mitigate these challenges and risks, the most important factors are mutual expectations, teamwork, shared information and materials as well as the firm's access to customer resources.

This study's results have practical implications for businesses implementing OBCs in the B2B arena. Ensuring the presence of these factors, identified from this study, in OBC delivery would overcome most of the challenges and risks faced.

Although research has been done on OBCs, many are conceptual or theoretical studies. This study is an empirical research into the challenges and risks of OBCs and the factors that could mitigate them; this advances knowledge in this domain.

To investigate the extent to which the contracting mechanisms instituted by the 2004 reform, in particular power auctions, have solved the investment hurdles created by the first reform.

The paper analyses the characteristics of Brazilian contracting and the experience so far with power auctions, concerning investments in generation and electricity prices.

Auctions have been moderately successful, in the sense that they have attracted a fair number of bidders and electric companies have increased their value in the stock exchange, while keeping prices moderate. However, a number of other hurdles to investment – in particular clear and feasible criteria for environmental licensing – have to be solved in order to achieve the reform goals.

The format of power auctions is still going through a learning process; also, the experience has been limited so far, which severely hinders the use of quantitative tools. This could be the object of future research, after more data are available. Of particular interest will be the follow‐up of free bilateral contracting, which has grown significantly.

This could be a useful reference for scholars interested in the recent developments in the Brazilian Electricity Supply Industry.

As far as is known, this is the first paper to systematically analyse the performance of power auctions in the Brazilian market. Its value lies in that it allows an objective evaluation of one central point of the 2004 reform.

This paper proposes assessing the context within which integrated logistic support (ILS) can be implemented for whole life performance of building services systems.

The use of ILS within a through‐life business model (TLBM) is a better framework to achieve a well‐designed, constructed and managed product. However, for ILS to be implemented in a TLBM for building services systems, the practices, tools and techniques need certain contextual prerequisites tailored to suit the construction industry. These contextual prerequisites are discussed.

The case studies conducted reinforced the contextual importance of prime contracting, partnering and team collaboration for the application of ILS techniques. The lack of data was a major hindrance to the full realisation of ILS techniques within the case studies.

The paper concludes with the recognition of the value of these contextual prerequisites for the use of ILS techniques within the building industry.

The purpose of this paper is to summarize previously reported benefits, drawbacks and important aspects for implementation of performance-based logistics (PBL), and to identify knowledge gaps.

This is a literature review based on 101 articles. The reviewed articles are relevant to PBL in particular, but also to performance contracting, product-service systems (PSS) and servitization in general. The research method involved database searches, filtering results and reviewing publications.

PBL is a business concept that aims to reduce the customer's total costs for capital-intensive products and increase the supplier's profit. The design of the contract, performance measurements and payment models are important aspects for successful implementation. However, the authors find a reason for concern to be the lack of empirical evidence of the profitability of PBL for the customer and the supplier.

This literature review of PBL also includes publications from the related research areas: performance contracting, PSS and servitization. Developing PBL can benefit from results in these research areas.

This paper aims to explore effective supply chain principles, through the theory of transaction cost economics, as measures to improve current contingency pharmaceutical item shortfalls in the Air Force Medical Service (AFMS) Contingency Pharmaceutical Programme.

In this research, AFMS contingency pharmaceutical data was collected from various databases, including the Joint Medical Asset Repository, Medical Contingency Requirements Workflow and the Medical Requirements List. Through the methodology of cost-benefit analysis, alternative sourcing and fulfilment practices are evaluated.

The findings of this research indicate that the application of centralized purchasing principles, in an effort to leverage prime vendor contract fill rates for shortage items, can lead to 12%–17% increases in pharmaceutical material availability across the programme.

This research clearly shows that consolidating demand for shortage items across Active Duty War Reserve Material assemblages, though applications of centralized purchasing principles that leverage prime vendor contract fill rates, can lead to substantial increases in material availability at costs that justify the calculated benefits.

The purpose of this paper is to provide further insight into operations management of the product-service (P-S) transition, known as servitization, and the resulting product service system (PSS) offerings. In exploring the P-S transition, this paper adopts a service-dominant (S-D) logic view of value creation, using it as a lens through which to explore value propositions of the P-S transition and their operations design.

This paper presents an in-depth case study of an original equipment manufacturer of durable capital equipment who, over the last five years, has expanded its offerings to include use- and result-orientated PSS. The research design uses a multi-method approach; employing 28 in-depth qualitative interviews with customers and employees and analysis of texts, documents and secondary data including five years of enterprise resource planning (ERP), call centre and contract data.

The paper identifies ten generic P-S attributes that are abstracted into four nested value propositions: asset value proposition; recovery value proposition; availability value proposition; and outcome value proposition. In examining the operations design for delivery of these value propositions, it is found that the role and importance of contextual variety increases as the organisation moves through the value propositions. Interdependencies amongst the value propositions and differences in operational design for each value proposition are also found.

The paper investigates PSS through a S-D logic mindset. First, the paper considers value propositions of PSS not according to “product” or “service” but in terms of how resources (both material and human) are optimally designed to co-create customer value. Second, a value co-creation system of nested value propositions is illustrated. In so doing, the findings have a number of implications for literature on both PSS and S-D logic. In addition, the research adds to the PSS literature through the identification and consideration of the concept of contextual use variety.

The paper demonstrates the complexity of the transition from product to service. Specifically, service cannot be seen as a bolt-on extra to their product offering; complexity caused by interactions and changes to the core offering require a systems perspective and consideration of both firm and customer skills and resources.

This paper extends existing literature on the P-S transition and its implications for operations management. Notably, it takes an S-D logic perspective of value creation and in so doing highlights the importance and role of contextual use variety in the P-S transition. It also provides further empirical evidence that the P-S transition cannot be treated as discrete stages but is evolutionary and requires a complex systems perspective.