Design guidelines towards absolute sustainability for technical product-service systems

The concept of product -service systems (PSS), established around the turn of the millennium, was coined by the realization of increased sustainability potential s compared to offering products alone . As the concept of PSS was further developed, technical PSS became a successful variation, exploiting economical and technical potentials in industrial settings . The recent shift towards an absolute perspective of sustainability changes the understanding of sustainable life cycle engineering and design. This new understanding challenge s designers to create PSS that not only offer incremental environmental advantages but actively contribute to a sustainable development. In PSS design, which comprises PSS planning and development, around 80% of the environmental performance throughout the life cycle are defined. Therefore, the design phase off ers strong potentials to achieve significant improvements of the environmental performance of a PSS . In this article, guidelines to design technical PSS in the context of absolute sustainability are presented. The guidelines include measures to achieve a h igh level of customer satisfaction, while simultaneously aiming to achieve environmental impact targets along the entire life cycle. The application of the guidelines enables the development of economically successful and sustainable technical PSS.