Huang Qinghua: How to develop service-oriented manufacturing with Chinese characteristics
With the accelerated iterative upgrading and expanded application of a new generation of information technology, industrial convergence continues to deepen, and service-oriented manufacturing has become a critical direction for the development of the manufacturing industry.
In 2025, seven departments, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, issued the Implementation Plan for Deeply Promoting the Innovative Development of Service-Oriented Manufacturing (2025–2028). This plan explicitly proposed the vigorous promotion of resource allocation optimization, the expansion of new development spaces, the extension of industrial chains, and the elevation of value chains in manufacturing, thereby laying a solid foundation for building a service-oriented manufacturing system with Chinese characteristics and world-class standards. The recommendations for the "15th Five-Year Plan" [1] also emphasize promoting the digital-intelligent transformation of manufacturing and developing intelligent manufacturing, green manufacturing, and service-oriented manufacturing. What, then, is service-oriented manufacturing? And how can we develop service-oriented manufacturing with Chinese characteristics?
Service-oriented manufacturing refers to increasing the proportion of service elements in a firm’s production and business operations, prompting the primary business model to shift from producing and selling products to providing "products + services." It differs from production-oriented manufacturing, which centers on the "product"; instead, it emphasizes extending service links across the entire chain—including R&D and design, the production process, and operations and maintenance—to achieve a deep integration of manufacturing and services. Currently, global competition in manufacturing has evolved into an overall competition between value chains and ecosystems, and service-oriented manufacturing is a key lever in this process. For our country, the service-oriented manufacturing we intend to develop possesses universal characteristics while also being rooted in domestic resources and advantages to form its own distinct features. Compared to generic models, China’s service-oriented manufacturing focuses more on closely aligning with the direction of national industrial upgrading, emphasizing the synergistic effects of national strategic guidance, an ultra-large-scale market, and digital technology. Its characteristics are primarily reflected in two aspects. On one hand, by relying on the multi-layered demand and full-industrial-chain application scenarios bred by an ultra-large-scale market, it drives manufacturing enterprises to open up differentiated competitive tracks and achieve a cluster-style climb toward the high end of the value chain. On the other hand, it strengthens digital empowerment, taking the integration of the real economy and the digital economy as the main thread. By improving product reliability, production and operational efficiency, and industrial chain coordination, it systematically reshapes the competitiveness of the manufacturing industry.
Taken together, developing service-oriented manufacturing with Chinese characteristics also means developing service-oriented manufacturing of a world-class standard. This is both a key path for converting the advantages of our ultra-large-scale market and complete industrial system into sustainable competitiveness and an urgent necessity for addressing the practical challenges of our manufacturing industry's transformation and upgrading.
Our country already possesses the practical foundation for advancing the construction of a manufacturing powerhouse [2] by relying on service-oriented manufacturing. Under the dual support of a complete industrial system and an ultra-large-scale market, "Made in China" possesses the capacity to upgrade from single product supply to providing systemic solutions covering the entire product life cycle. Moreover, it can achieve rapid trial-and-error iteration within massive and rich application scenarios, forming industry standards and quality services that pull product upgrades in reverse, effectively enhancing industrial chain resilience and international competitiveness.
Service-oriented manufacturing technology is becoming a key support for consolidating the leading position of our manufacturing industry. In fields such as high-end equipment, new energy, and intelligent manufacturing, our service-oriented manufacturing technology has reached advanced international levels. By embedding the technical advantages of service-oriented manufacturing into the product usage end and the entire life cycle, we can create an industrial chain closed-loop—from data collection to continuous product iteration. This not only enhances customer stickiness and operational efficiency but also enables a sustainable premium from product delivery to value co-creation.
The development of service-oriented manufacturing helps to break through resource and environmental constraints via intensive growth [3]. As resource and environmental constraints become increasingly tight, the traditional growth model of "competing on capacity and costs" is difficult to sustain. Service-oriented manufacturing can extend value creation from a one-time sale to the entire product life cycle. Through delivery, operation and maintenance, upgrading, and remanufacturing, it increases product added value and customer stickiness, driving enterprises to shift from price competition toward competition based on quality, brands, and solutions, thereby achieving intensive growth under limited resource conditions.
Service-oriented manufacturing emphasizes promoting the coordinated development of the industrial ecosystem. Relying on platform-based services and standardized interfaces, the development of service-oriented manufacturing in China adheres to opening up R&D, manufacturing, and operation and maintenance capabilities to the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, driving collaborative innovation and specialized division of labor. This not only enables the vast number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to share the fruits of advanced manufacturing development and deeply integrate into industrial networks but also enhances the sustainable development capacity of the industrial chain as a whole.
Building a manufacturing powerhouse cannot be achieved without developing service-oriented manufacturing with distinct characteristics. This is not a simple summation of several service-manufacturing links; rather, it must follow an industrial evolution logic where demand guides the direction, technology improves efficiency, systems support development, and institutions reduce friction, effectively leveraging the supporting role of service-oriented manufacturing. In recent years, the development of service-oriented manufacturing in China has continued to accelerate, but weak links still exist. We should promote its high-quality development from the following aspects:
First, construct a full-chain digital service system to solidify the digital service foundation. Relying on our country’s complete industrial system foundation, we should accelerate the construction of digital service systems covering the entire chain and all links—including R&D, production, and operation and maintenance—to improve the flexible manufacturing and agile response capabilities of enterprises, better satisfying the market's demand for large-scale customization. The focus should be on strengthening technical empowerment, taking digital-intelligent technology as the foundation for developing service-oriented manufacturing, strengthening the construction of new types of information infrastructure, deploying computing power infrastructure according to demand, and promoting the integrated innovation of artificial intelligence technology and service-oriented manufacturing.
Second, cultivate and expand key service-oriented manufacturing industries to consolidate the foundation of service capabilities. Our country’s producer services industry is showing good development momentum, with sub-sectors continuing to expand, forming an industrial ecosystem that deeply coordinates with manufacturing. We must focus on key areas, promoting the deep integration of manufacturing and services in terms of technology, business formats, and models, using specialized division of labor to improve efficiency and innovation-driven approaches to break through transformation bottlenecks, thereby constructing a service-oriented manufacturing system that is adapted to the industrial base and possesses both efficiency and resilience.
Third, construct a national unified large market to better promote industrial integration. In this process, we must use unified rules to smooth the flow of factors, breaking down barriers between manufacturing and services, online and offline, and across regions, to promote the cross-regional and cross-scenario replication of service-oriented manufacturing models. Simultaneously, we must strengthen fair competition, breaking down local protectionism and administrative monopolies to promote the efficient allocation of factors such as data, talent, and capital on a national scale. This will comprehensively reduce the coordination costs of industrial integration and form an institutional environment conducive to the large-scale development of service-oriented manufacturing.
Fourth, strengthen the principal status of enterprises to stimulate endogenous market dynamics. Our country possesses a massive group of manufacturing enterprises covering the entire industrial chain. We should fully leverage their advantages in terms of proximity to the market and familiarity with their industries, encouraging enterprises to actively explore service-oriented transformation paths based on their own conditions, inherent endowments, and stages of development. This will enhance their penetration into the industrial chain and their responsiveness to market demand, injecting vitality into the creation of service-oriented manufacturing with Chinese characteristics.