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Smart servitization within the context of industrial user–supplier relationships: contingencies according to a machine tool manufacturer

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Abstract

Advanced manufacturing technologies (AMT) have been hailed as enablers to make industrial products and operations smart. The present paper argues that AMT can not only form a lever for developing smart goods and smart production environments, but can likewise form a basis to offer smart services and to propose servitized earning or payment models to industrial users. We do so on the basis of a literature review, followed by a case-based analysis of the AMT and servitization challenges to which a machine tool manufacturer is exposed in its industrial market environment. Consequently, the present study identifies a set of contingencies c.q. catalyzers with regard to seizing AMT for smart servitization practices within industrial business-to-business contexts. These are: the ability to capture relevant data; to exploit such data adequately and convert them into actionable knowledge; and to build trust among users and producers of capital goods in order to come to effective data exchange. We finish by deriving implications for smart servitization in a manufacturing context, and by outlining case-based lessons on how AMT and servitization can further interactive design and manufacturing practices in an industrial producer-user setting. We contend that there may be a gap between the technological and organizational readiness of (many) machine tool companies for smart servitization, on the one hand, and what different publications on AMT and Industry 4.0 are trying to make out. We also find that besides the high-tech and big data components to smart servitization, companies with an ambition in this field should take into account minimum/right information principles, to actually get to deep learning, and to establish a culture of trust with business partners, and inside implicated organizations among departments to create an environment in which smart servitized user-supplier relationships can prosper.

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Notes

  1. Ayerbe et al. [66] refer to smartization as: endowing assets with technologies that allows them to obtain real-time data from the environment in view of real-time control, monitoring and interaction with the real world. Davis et al. [61] refer to smart manufacturing as the application of manufacturing intelligence geared through networked information-based technologies along value chain (counter)part(ner)s.

  2. Firms that are situated at the global productivity frontier are on average 4–5 times more productive than non-frontier firms in terms of multi-factor productivity (McGowan et al. [68]).

  3. The ratio between “new order intake” versus the accumulated basis of machines already installed in the market.

  4. Among others, it is in charge of monitoring extant production technologies, emerging (smart) technologies, as well as trends in the realm of Internet of Things.

  5. Furthermore, numerous less structured and informal discussions took place with the main contact person within the R&D&i unit.

  6. Compare to an external and internal body scan on pregnancy, for instance.

  7. While these “objections” form a misconception of the extended value proposition, the focal company indicates that such reservations are made in practice among its user community.

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Acknowledgments

Orkestra acknowledges that this paper has benefited from research projects carried out for the Diputacion Foral de Bizkaia, the Basque Government/SPRI and the Diputacion Foral de Gipuzkoa.

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  1. Orkestra-Basque Institute of Competitiveness, University of Deusto, San Sebastian, Bilbao, Spain

    Bart Kamp

  2. IKERGUNE A.I.E., Elgoibar, 20870, Spain

    Ainhoa Ochoa & Javier Diaz

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Kamp, B., Ochoa, A. & Diaz, J. Smart servitization within the context of industrial user–supplier relationships: contingencies according to a machine tool manufacturer. Int J Interact Des Manuf 11, 651–663 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12008-016-0345-0

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