Designing Smart Textile Services through value networks, team mental models and shared ownership

Abstract

The goal of Smart Textile Services is to integrate existing knowledge from the separate domains of textile (soft materials), technology and services. As no single actor can meaningfully understand and realize the creation of Product Service Systems multiple actors need to team up with relevant partners. The contribution of this paper is to describe the initiation of a bottom-up approach aiming to co-design Smart Textile Services in collaboration with partners from the Dutch textile and technology industry, service providers, creative hubs and academic institutes. The concepts of value networks, team mental models and shared ownership are used to design and analyse two co-design workshops that took place within the consortium: a co-reflection and a co-creation workshop. We will use the same concepts to reflect on how a bottom-up approach can be used for designing Smart Textile Services, and how a designer can contribute to this process. Further, we will indicate how we are planning to pursue this bottom-up approach in future research.

Martijn ten Bhömer

Co-founder & CTO

Specialized in the design, research and development of intelligent products.