Open Access

Günther Schuh, Jan Kuntz, Volker Stich, Philipp Jussen

• In the context of product service systems and smart services, the huge number of possible variants and dynamic market requirements present a challenge for service providers who want to stay profitable. The combination of variety and dynamic is called the complexity challenge. Among the main difficulty is to respond to the market’s external variety and dynamic with the right flexibility without losing efficiency or effectiveness. This paper, motivated by a case study, focuses on selected difficulties posed by complex markets on the portfolio, product, process and resource level. It introduces a qualitative and quantitative model to manage a company’s internal complexity according to the external complexity on all mentioned levels. In the introduction, the most relevant challenges posed by complex markets will be explained in detail. The second section covers the understanding of complexity management as a control loop. The third section then introduces a set of key figures that can be used to evaluate a company’s internal complexity on a quantitative level. In the fourth section, a curve model that aims at representing the qualitative interconnections between these key figures to gain control of the complexity in product service systems and smart services will be presented.