In recent years, the economic circumstances spur many companies in changing their traditional product-oriented value proposition toward a more customised and sustainable offer referred as Product-Service Systems (PSS). The main advantages of the new solutions are related to their customisation which can grant an improved customer experience. However, while pursuing greater differentiation from competitors and ‘locking-in’ customers and ‘locking-out’ competitors, many of the above-cited companies either miss interesting business opportunities or bet on the wrong solution concept. Early stage engineering phase plays a crucial role concerning the subsequent lifecycle phases, guiding the identification and the selection of valuable solutions while preventing commitment of resources on poor design alternatives. In the light of the criticality of this phase, this paper builds on empirical studies in the manufacturing industry and highlights the need for systematic procedures, methods and metrics able to encompass customer satisfaction together with the producer’s value perspective during the early design assessment. The outcome of the paper is the Engineering Value Assessment (EVA) method. It is a 2 step procedure composed of multi-criteria decision-making methods with specific criteria for a comprehensive value assessment of PSS from both the customers’ and the provider’s perspectives. The EVA also guides the identification of trade-off between the two through the Importance-Performance Analysis. Verification activities in the power and automation industry highlight the main benefits and the implications of the EVA method in guiding the decision making in the early stages of design and in balancing the trade-off between customer and provider value during the PSS assessment phase. Further developments and improvements are also discussed.

近年来，经济形势促使许多公司将其传统的面向产品的价值主张转变为更具定制性和可持续性的产品服务系统（PSS）。新解决方案的主要优点与定制有关，可以带来更好的客户体验。但是，在追求与竞争对手，“锁定”客户和“锁定”竞争对手的更大差异的同时，许多上述公司要么错过了有趣的商机，要么就押错了解决方案的概念。早期工程阶段在后续生命周期阶段起着至关重要的作用，指导确定和选择有价值的解决方案，同时防止将资源投入不良的设计替代方案。鉴于这一阶段的关键性，本文以制造业的经验研究为基础，并强调了在早期设计评估过程中需要能够涵盖客户满意度以及生产​​者价值观点的系统化程序，方法和度量标准的需求。本文的结果是工程价值评估（EVA）方法。这是一个两步过程，由多准则决策方法和特定准则组成，用于从客户和提供者的角度对PSS进行全面的价值评估。EVA还通过重要性-性能分析指导确定两者之间的权衡。电力和自动化行业中的验证活动突出了EVA方法的主要优点和含义，该方法在设计的早期阶段指导决策，并在PSS评估阶段平衡客户和提供者的价值之间的取舍。还讨论了进一步的发展和改进。