Product Service System Configuration Based on a PCA-QPSO-SVM Model

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

My congratulations this work is well constructed. The methodology is clear, the results are well explained. The conclusions are present but need to be tweaked further. Summarize the key findings, underscore your new significant insights, and, then, build on these to develop a solid set of conclusions that come out of your unique study. Authors don’t present future research and limitation this research. Referencing to prior studies in the discussion section (which there are not) are needed to support the findings of the study .
Please, have in your mind the link between the objective of your study, approach and the results. The readers want to easily understand the link between Theoretical Background – Research Purpose – Data – Empirical Results – Discussion. Be as specific as possible and also as simple as possible. 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The abstract is well written and presents the outline of the paper.

The introduction presents the motivations of the research but the research question can be brought up more effectively: RQ : How to.... / What.... ? If needed, the research question can be decomposed into sub-questions and addressed in the discussion of results.

The literature review is adequately written and detailed: perhaps more light can be shed by including the works of the authors below and pointing out the limitations of their work :

• Sustainable product-service systems customization: A case study research in the medical equipment sector by Haber and Fargnoli (2021)

• PSS modularisation: a customer-driven integrated approach by Fargnoli, Haber and Sakao (2019)

Throughout the paper, some figures seem a bit offset : I suggest revising all tables and figures to ensure their correct alignment

Sections 6. Case analysis should be renamed. At first glance, it might be mistaken for a "Discussion of results" section whereas it is a grey area in the manuscript.

A sub-section 6.4 can be added and explain clearly how the research question in answered. It is not clear the way it is currently presented.

Section 7 should reflect on the entire paper and be less detailed (l.580) is more fitting in a §6.4 (see above)

Reference 2 is in red --> correct the font color.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

I am not able to give advice on this manuscript, mainly because I am not familiar with the methodology and I wrote this in my report, so the Editor will probably assign this review to a more suitable reviewer. However, there are some general issues with your manuscript which require addressing and that I would like to attract your attention to:

1. The language is in places not that clear - so it was really hard for me to understand the argument of this manuscript
2. The definition of PSS is very dated. Some work cited (e.g. Goedkoop) is more than 25 years old
3. Some statements are unclear. For example, "with the development of technology, the product market is becoming more and more homogeneous". What does this mean? Homogeneous in what way? Is it true? 
4. Lines 63-64 (P. 2) what does "it is necessary to reduce the dimension of customer demand" mean?
5. Perhaps some terms should be defined, e.g. stiction (I had to look it up), what I am suggesting is that the manuscript is not accessible to those who are not specialists in the authors' field. What are the "kernel function" and "penalty factor"?
   Section 2.3 - SVM classifier optimization is not about PSS (should this not be what the literature is about?) and I find it very hard to understand 
6. How are the customer needs identified? P. 6, 245-249 I am not clear
7. There are many references to data (including "historical data", but what data is it? When has it been collected, and by whom? How? This is not explained and it is important.
8. The conclusion really had me confused. It starts with  "PSS is a new concept that emerged during the service-oriented transformation..." really? New? PSS has been written since the late 80's early 90s - we are in 2021. 

See what other reviewers familiar with the methodology you use say, it might be however that you need to rewrite with people in mind who are not familiar with the methods you use but who research PSS

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf