Transitioning product education to product service education

The defining lines between product and service are becoming increasingly blurred. The importance of services is increasing within manufacturing companies and trends are moving towards a more product service approach to business, where both are combined together to provide high customer value. This has resulted in services now accounting for a greater share of profits then manufacturing operations in many 'manufacturing' firms. As a result, designers must now be capable of designing integrated product and services systems (PSS). However, product-orientated design students can struggle to account for the inherent differences between goods and services, and integrate the two effectively. Therefore, a tailored approach to design education is required in order to move with industry demand and convert product-orientated design students to product-service design students. This paper discusses methodologies, tools and approaches used to convert product-orientated design students to product-service design students, providing a structure through which a successful conversion can occur.