Advancing complex product-service systems (CoPSS) design: An integrative literature review

As industries grapple with mounting multidisciplinary design challenges, Complex Product–Service Systems (CoPSS) emerge as a strategic response for delivering value through integrated social, technical, and ecological systems. Existing Product–Service Systems (PSS) frameworks are insufficient to manage these overlapping pressures. While Smart PSS, Sustainable PSS, and Industrial PSS address components of this shift, they do so in isolation. CoPSS has been increasingly described as a system-of-systems design approach that integrates digital, service, and ecological strategies to enhance systemic value. This paper consolidates CoPSS design literature to clarify the field, map its evolution, and propose an integrative framework for future research. It adopts an integrative literature review methodology, combining bibliometric and thematic analyses. The review draws on 723 peer-reviewed journal articles, from which 62 CoPSS design studies were selected through structured screening and full-text appraisal for in-depth thematic analysis. Key findings reveal three design clusters that correspond to the emerging transitions in servitisation, digitalisation, and sustainability, with limited integration. Fewer than 1 % of studies addressed all three transitions jointly. CoPSS design themes span technical, social, and ecological domains, including system modelling, co-creation, and circular design. However, integration across these domains remains rare. A conceptual framework maps dominant research themes, methods, theoretical lenses, and proposed directions across intersectional dimensions, highlighting convergence patterns and structural gaps. This is the first integrative review to synthesise CoPSS design across the triple transitions. It advances theoretical clarity, methodological diversity, and strategic direction, and offers an actionable framework to guide holistic, adaptable, and sustainable system design. • Identifies servitisation, digitalisation, sustainability as emerging design transitions. • Combines bibliometric and thematic analysis in an integrative literature review. • Synthesises CoPSS design themes across social, technical, ecological dimensions. • Reveals fragmented integration across triple transitions in CoPSS literature. • Develops a framework to guide future holistic and adaptive CoPSS design research.