Towards a BPMN 2.0 Extension for Planning the inter-organizational Collaboration in Product Service Systems Networks

The offering of product service systems requires the integration of products and services into customer-focused and problem-centered solutions. For engineering and offering these product service systems, highly specialized companies and especially small and medium-sized enterprises have to collaborate in a flexible way with the consumer as well as various other companies by integrating their individual competencies into the final offering. The collaboration requires the integration of processes across company borders and the coordination of the actors’ contributions. However, an intransparent planning and an insufficient participation of the different actors during the planning leads to insecurities concerning the timing and characteristics of the contributions. At the same time, the planning costs have to be restricted for preserving the flexibility of such value networks. With BPMN 2.0 the OMG offers a widespread standard for modeling processes. However, it is unclear, whether the BPMN 2.0 modeling methodology is suitable for covering the specific requirements that arise from the planning of value networks for the engineering and offering of product service systems.