Shifting to a through-life focus in the machine tool sector

摘要

Through-life engineering services (TES) are a set of capabilities, techniques, business thinking and network behaviour that, when applied to major assets, optimise their value and cost (for example keeping assets working better, for longer at lower cost) (PAS 280). Along these lines, major assets refer to complex engineered products, systems or systems-of-systems with an overall life measured in decades and a need for substantial investment through life. In the process of achieving optimised value and cost, there are many challenges in TES solutions, ranging from commercial (for example business model, value proposition), engineering (degradation, repair mechanisms), and life cycle planning (develop, prepare, utilise, retire) type aspects. This paper focuses on evaluating what are the major challenges that need to be addressed so that through-life thinking can be adopted in the machine tool sector. Offering integrated products and services has now turned into a conscious and explicit strategy for manufacturers. The provision of product-centric services is becoming a main differentiating factor, which has become known as the servitisation of manufacturing. This paper explores through literature review and industrial survey the current trends and challenges in servitisation experienced within the machine tool sector. Through this study an insight has been provided into what are the requirements to servitise machine tools, and how can equipment and machine tool manufacturers evaluate a servitised delivery system. Some of the key results from the study indicate that this type of competitive strategy brings with it significant technical, cultural, and corporate challenges for traditional MTS. It has been observed that companies which decide on a product-centric service strategy must transform their organisational structures and processes in order to become successful.