Service implementation in manufacturing:An organisational transformation perspective

Abstract

The topic of servitization of manufacturing continues to gain attention from both the engineering and business research communities. As a consequence, the conceptual foundations of servitization are now becoming better established, and attention is focusing on the processes through which manufacturers go to develop innovative service capabilities that enable them to successfully compete through services. This Special Issue sets out to focus on these transformation processes. In this introductory article we review the selected articles that comprise this Special Issue. We provide a framework to contextualize and understand the research findings reported in the Special Issue and reflect on the contributions of the research to the theory and practice of servitization. Through this process we seek to consolidate the state-of-the-art in this area and identify important, challenging, but potentially fruitful topics for future studies.