Digital Twins in Customer-Centric Innovation : Leveraging Digital Twins to Enhance ProductDevelopment and Service Customization Based on User Insights

Sammanfattning

Background. In today’s fast-paced business world, there is a notable shift from product-centric to solution-centric approaches driven by discussions around sustainability. This shift underscores the increasing demand for Product-Service systems as companies strive to adapt to evolving customer needs. Digital Twin-based approaches have emerged as a potential tool in this landscape, providing new methods for gathering customer insights. The construction industry is a crucial sector vital to economic growth, accounting for approximately 10 percent of the gross domestic product of many countries. However, it faces several challenges, including low productivity, unpredictability, and slow innovation. Objectives. The aim of this thesis is to propose a system that improves through-life support in heavy construction equipment. Additionally, the potential benefit of utilizing a Digital Twin for the development of Product-Service Systems will be suggested based on the developed system. Methods. In this thesis, the design approach was chosen to be Design Thinking to provide a structured framework that fits the uncertain and iterative process that the project demands. Furthermore, the tools and methods from Design Thinking were utilized to ensure the final solution was developed with creative support and constant concept feedback to address the user’s needs. Results. This thesis results in three potential areas of improvement in the through-life support of construction equipment, concepts that could address these, and the problem that is stopping their realization. Furthermore, a proposed solution to this problem has been developed that could enable the implementation of Digital Twins in construction equipment. Conclusions. This thesis finds that data collection issues prevent the implementation of Digital Twins in construction equipment. It also presents several potential strengths and weaknesses of Digital Twins in Product-Service System development.Additionally, it presents some future directions in Digital Twins and Product-Service Systems that need further work.