For a university project, my team members and I had to develop a product-service combination. Whereby the physical product had to support the intangible service. Next to that, the physical product cannot function without the service and vice versa. Also, it was a requirement that the product was not personally owned and that multiple people are able to use it. These were the only requirements given, which gave us the opportunity to define the assignment mainly by ourselves.
We started this project by having multiple brainstorm sessions in which we made big mindmaps with everyone’s ideas. Afterwards, we selected our favorite ideas and each team member elaborated on certain ideas. In the end, there were five concepts and the one with the most potential was selected.
Final Product-Service System
Greenhouse owners want to achieve a high rate of pollination, so they use controlled pollinators like bees and bumblebees. Now they often only use one specific species of insect, which comes with its negative side effects. Besides, adding more of the same species of insect will not increase pollination and might even decrease pollination rates. Due to this, multiple different insects could be a better option to increase pollination in greenhouses and decrease external risks on the pollination.
That is where OptiPoll comes into picture. Our goal is to optimize the pollination in greenhouses by making use of multiple different natural pollinators. The products that will be sold to reach this goal, are insects that are equipped with a habitat. As a start-up company it is common to start with a small product range and gain a wider range as the company grows. This is why the decision has been made to focus on selling four different insects. The four different insects we will sell are: honey bees, leafcutter bees, bumblebees and hoverflies. They all come with different types of hives that are adjusted to the specific type of insects, which are shown below.
To add value to the product, services are provided for the user. Firstly, we will give expert advice on which insects, in what amount and what placement would be the best fit for the customer based on the characteristics of their greenhouse and crops. Secondly, the ordered insects and hives will be delivered to the doorstep of the customer by specialized delivery vans. Thirdly, when the customer has decided to order honey bees, OptiPoll will provide the service of placing and maintaining the hives together with a local beekeeper. Customers can get a monthly subscription or do a one time purchase.
My Experience
I very much enjoyed working on this project. I liked that we got the opportunity to come up with a product-service system without having many requirements prior. On the one hand this was hard, because there were many options to choose from. On the other hand, it gave a lot of freedom in the ideation phase. The part I worked most on in this project is ideation and the prototype of the website. Together with a fellow team member, I made the prototype for the website. I found this to be very enjoyable, because I had not worked with the program (Axure) yet, so it was interesting to learn more about it.
