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Improvement of reverse supply chains requires accurate and timely information about the patterns of consumption. In the consumer context, the ways to generate and access such use-visibility data are in their infancy. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how the Internet of Things (IoT) may be operationalised in the domestic setting to capture data on a consumer’s use of products and the implications for reverse supply chains.

This study uses an explorative case approach drawing on data from studies of six UK households. “Horizontal” data, which reveals patterns in consumers’ use processes, is generated by combining “vertical” data from multiple sources. Use processes in the homes are mapped using IDEF0 and illustrated with the data. The quantitative data are generated using wireless sensors in the home, and qualitative data are drawn from online calendars, social media, interviews and ethnography.

The study proposes four generic measurement categories for operationalising the concept of use-visibility: experience, consumption, interaction and depletion, which together address the use of different household resources. The explorative case demonstrates how these measures can be operationalised to achieve visibility of the context of use in the home. The potential of such use-visibility for reverse supply chains is discussed.

This explorative case study is based on an in-depth study of the bathroom which illustrates the application of use-visibility measures (UVMs) but provides a limited use context. Further research is needed from a wider set of homes and a wider set of use processes and contexts.

The case demonstrates the operationalisation of the combination of data from different sources and helps answer questions of “why?”, “how?”, “when?” and “how much?”, which can inform reverse supply chains. The four UVMs can be operationalised in a way that can contribute to supply chain visibility, providing accurate and timely information of consumption, optimising resource use and eliminating waste.

IDEF0 framework and case analysis is used to identify and validate four UVMs available through IoT data – that of experience, consumption, interaction and depletion. The UVMs characterise IoT data generated from a given process and inform the primary reverse flow in the future supply chain. They provide the basis for future data collection and development of theory around their effect on reverse supply chain efficiency.

The purpose of this paper is to show how manufacturers evolve when aiming at increasing customer value via the service addition path. More specifically, it aims to identify drivers and inhibitors as well as trajectories to reach “ideal” service addition types.

This paper employs a multiple case study design. In total 12 in‐depth interviews were conducted with managers from machine building manufacturers resulting in five longitudinal case studies of “best practice” companies. The paper is grounded in the “integrated solutions” research paradigm.

Four types of service addition can be identified based on this multiple case study. Diverse drivers push companies to higher degrees of customization and to less tangible offerings via different trajectories. On these trajectories, though, they are likely to encounter inhibitors.

The qualitative nature of this paper acts as a basis for future research efforts. On the one hand this paper has traditional shortcomings typical of interpretive studies. On the other, future research is stimulated as the exploratory but rich and longitudinal findings suggest further testing and development.

A strategy of service addition is frequently used by industrial companies to seek customer value and escape price pressure. This paper offers a framework that helps managers chose from the potential set of service addition types. The paper also identifies difficulties (the so‐called “inhibitors”) companies might encounter when pursuing this strategy.

The rich case‐based methodology enables the development of a preliminary model that identifies types of service addition and corresponding transition trajectories. The paper adds to the emergent “theory on service business for manufacturing firms” by offering a typology and an industry‐specific view on drivers and inhibitors of service addition along the different transition trajectories.

Case study findings increasingly indicate that the implementation of service‐based business concepts is becoming a global business trend. The purpose of this paper is to analyze a broad European survey to understand the extent to which service infusion has already deeply affected manufacturing industries and the factors influencing service infusion.

Data from 3,376 companies participating in the European Manufacturing Survey were included in an evaluation of service offerings and service sales. Multivariate data analyzes were used to develop statistically relevant conclusions regarding service infusion and the factors influencing it.

Whereas, the vast majority of companies surveyed offer services, the turnover generated by services was still low, and the adopted service strategies did not seem fully developed. The most significant determinant of service sales was the breadth of services offered. Other relevant explanatory factors included the characteristics of the type of products sold, whereas the position in the supply chain did not seem to affect service infusion.

Using large‐scale survey data, this analysis provides a representative picture of service infusion in manufacturing industries and related causal relationships. Further qualitative research should develop interpretations of the relationships found in our quantitative analysis; as such, subsequent quantitative analyzes are necessary.

As most previous studies on service infusion are based on case study reports, the value of this paper comes from its use of a broad empirical database. Thus, the paper supports, confirms, and generalizes previous qualitative findings.

Although performance‐based contracting (PBC) is gaining importance in manufacturing industries, corresponding research is still in its infancy. In order to provide a basis for future research on this emerging topic, thus paper aims to propose a specific conceptual model.

Conducting a comprehensive literature review, 39 academic publications dealing with this topic in‐depth were analyzed. To structure the various approaches of PBC in manufacturing industries, existing preliminary conceptual models in the form of morphological boxes were built upon and developed further.

Focusing on manufacturing industries, the review reveals a comprehensive view on PBC, with three topics that are important to PBC but have been largely neglected in research: even though research considers PBC foremost regarding manufacturers, independent service providers can also offer PBC; closely related to ownership, financing constitutes an essential issue in PBC; and PBC may include maintenance as well as operation.

First, the paper systematizes existing literature and clarifies the concept of PBC in manufacturing industries. Second, it presents a specific conceptual model for analyzing this topic in more depth. Third, it reveals promising avenues for future research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how modularity is used for enabling value creation in managing healthcare logistics services.

Material logistics of four different kinds of hospitals is examined through a qualitative case study. The theoretical framework builds on the literature on healthcare logistics, service modularity and value creation.

The case hospitals have developed their material logistics independently from others when looking at the modularity of offerings, processes and organisations. Services, such as assortment management, shelving and developing an information platform, have been performed in-house partly by the care personnel, but steps towards modularised and standardised solutions are now being taken in the case hospitals, including ideas about outsourcing some of the services.

This paper proposes seven modularity components for healthcare logistics management: segmentation, categorisation and unitisation of offerings, differentiation and decoupling of processes, and centralisation and specialisation of organisations. Thus, this study clarifies the three-dimensional concept of modularity as a cognitive frame for managing logistics services with heterogeneous customer needs in a rapidly changing healthcare environment.

Modularity offers a tool for developing logistics services inside the hospital and increases possibilities to consider also external logistics service providers.

Managing healthcare logistics services through modularity has potential social implications in developing healthcare processes and changing the usage of health services. On a wider scale, modularity is helping healthcare systems reaching their goals in terms of service quality and cost.

This paper shows the context-specific antecedents of service modularity and the usage of modular thinking in managing healthcare logistics.

The paper aims to explore how dynamic capabilities of sensing, seizing and reconfiguring shape the way in which service business is developed in a broad range of capital goods industries.

The paper takes an interpretative multiple‐case study approach. It seeks to develop primary organizing themes around the key dynamic capabilities and support them with research propositions.

The findings suggest that companies either exploit or explore the opportunities when it comes to service business development. Moreover, dynamic capabilities differ between the two approaches and predict which way a company chooses.

Research limitations are mainly due to the nature of qualitative research. The dynamic capabilities identified here are by no means exhaustive; rather, they indicate directions for future research.

The research findings provide guidance to managers as to how the strategic shift towards services is influenced by dynamic capabilities.

Despite difficulties associated with service business development, the literature remains relatively silent on dynamic capabilities. However, dynamic capabilities are essential to the strategic shift towards service business.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to create a framework for measuring mutually created value in business relationships in the manufacturing sector, which also enables suppliers and customers to share this value between themselves.

The starting point is that manufacturing firms adopt a service perspective or logic for their entire business. The framework created includes a conceptual foundation for understanding the process of mutual value creation as well as theoretical basis and metrics for calculating mutually created value, joint productivity gains (JPGs) and value sharing. The framework for mutual value creation is created conceptually. The theoretical basis for the metrics used for the calculations and the development of the metrics are empirically grounded in a longitudinal case study.

By matching supplier and customer practices and thereby aligning corresponding processes, resources and competencies, suppliers can support their customers' business more effectively and thus enable the customers and also themselves to create incremental value which can be shared between the business partners. It is showed that the metrics for calculating JPGs and for sharing these gains in the form of additional value for the business partners, through a price mechanism, can be created and used.

Findings of the paper suggest an alternative way of creating value which is geared towards the demands of a service logic applied in business relationships. Productivity can be created jointly and not separately by the supplier and the customer, and an incremental value in the form of a JPG calculated and shared. To be able to do this, the business partners must have access to accounting data, and the customer and the supplier must be willing to open up their books and engage in mutual practice matching. This demands that a service logic is adopted for the entire manufacturing business, not separately for industrial service activities only, which is the traditional approach to studying service in manufacturing.

Traditionally, value is viewed as an outcome, not as a process of mutual value creation, the outcome of which can be calculated. Productivity as a joint concept and jointly created productivity gains enable firms to share the gains created through mutual value creation. In the literature so far, productivity and value creation have not been studied as mutual concepts. In addition, approaching the entire manufacturing business from a service logic point of view is also novel.

To provide a perspective on the nature of service infusion in manufacturing companies based on a case analysis in the context of a maintenance management solution for industrial production equipment.

The paper first discusses how manufacturers becoming service providers is treated in the literature. Next, a qualitative single‐case study is reported, in which a troublesome business concept was surveyed through 35 thematic focus group interviews. The analysis revealed a set of challenges that were compared to arrive at a conclusion, the paradox.

The findings suggest that many challenges stemmed from the manufacturing‐oriented way of doing business. This further indicates that the common implicit view, that manufacturers can shift to service provision steadily, by adding service offerings to their total offering one by one, may actually be hazardous.

The limitations are based on the methodology. First, the case study focuses on only one manufacturing company, and therefore the aim of the paper is not to generalize the findings. On the other hand, the data collected for the case are rich and in‐depth in nature, and the brief reporting can only cover the tip of the iceberg. Yet, even one divergent case yields for questioning the existing beliefs, which is the aim of this study.

The paper provides an original perspective to this topical, but under‐studied, phenomenon of manufacturers increasingly providing service offerings, and brings into daylight the implicit tone of the existing research.