Against the backdrop of continuous and deep adjustments in the global shipbuilding market, how can the shipbuilding industry promote innovation in business models and formats, achieve structural adjustment and transformation upgrading? The practice of transformation and upgrading in China’s manufacturing industry in recent years has proven that developing new service-oriented manufacturing formats is a breakthrough point for the transformation and upgrading of the shipbuilding industry and the cultivation of new driving forces. The so-called service-oriented manufacturing refers to a new industrial form that integrates manufacturing and service development. As an important component of the high-end equipment manufacturing industry, the shipbuilding industry has the foundation and conditions to take the lead in breaking through in China’s construction of a world manufacturing powerhouse. China’s shipbuilding industry should innovate production organization forms, operation management methods, and business models, extend the service chain, provide a complete combination of “production+services”, improve quality and efficiency, enhance competitive advantages, achieve structural adjustment and transformation upgrading, and make due contributions to building a strong manufacturing country.
With the continuous downturn in the international shipping market and international crude oil prices, the global shipbuilding market has entered a period of deep adjustment, and China’s shipbuilding and marine engineering equipment industry is also facing unprecedented challenges. Overcapacity and insufficient demand have become the main contradictions that constrain the development of China’s shipbuilding industry. Therefore, relying solely on production scale to promote development in production-oriented manufacturing is difficult to sustain, and transitioning to service-oriented manufacturing has become an important way for shipbuilding enterprises to enhance competitiveness and obtain profits. Currently, services are becoming an important source of profit for manufacturing enterprises in fields such as aviation and national defense, automotive manufacturing, industrial automation, communication equipment manufacturing, life sciences, and pharmaceutical equipment. This phenomenon indicates that only by breaking through the weakness of “service” can shipping companies seize the opportunity of service-oriented manufacturing in the world today and steadily move forward in the increasingly fierce market competition. More importantly, in the deep adjustment of the global competitive landscape, the development of service-oriented manufacturing is a necessary condition for China’s shipbuilding industry to restructure its competitive advantage. Major shipbuilding countries are accelerating their transition to “manufacturing+services”, with a particular emphasis on investment in technology, knowledge, information, and services. With the weakening of traditional comparative advantages and the transformation of service-oriented manufacturing, it will effectively promote China’s shipbuilding industry to seize the future high ground in the new industrial competition environment.
Service oriented manufacturing is an important way to promote the deep integration of manufacturing and service industries, enhance the core competitiveness of China’s manufacturing industry, and promote industrial transformation and upgrading, which has received strong support from the country. “Made in China 2025”, “Special Action Guide for the Development of Service oriented Manufacturing”, and “Action Plan for Improving the Capacity of Ship Supporting Industry (2016-2020)” have pointed out the direction for the shipbuilding industry to create a new business type of service oriented manufacturing. The shipbuilding industry should seize policy opportunities, fully utilize its own conditions, and make great efforts to cultivate and develop new service-oriented manufacturing formats. On the one hand, new technologies such as digitization, networking, and intelligence can be utilized to comprehensively launch a new market offensive, build a new service-oriented manufacturing industry with the characteristics of a sharing economy, accelerate transformation, and achieve breakthroughs against the trend; Vigorously carry out diversified services, providing extended services in design, customization, collaborative manufacturing, supply chain management, product lifecycle management, system solutions, information value-added, etc., so that the business scope runs through the entire product lifecycle, in order to achieve comprehensive, wide-ranging, and deep integration of manufacturing and services.
On the other hand, we need to learn to shift from a “product oriented” to a “customer oriented” approach. For example, it is not only necessary to provide safe, economical, and applicable equipment for offshore oil and gas development, but also to provide a “technology+business” package solution for the full lifecycle oil and gas development operations of oil and gas companies. In recent years, China Shipbuilding Industry Group Corporation has improved its production capacity competitiveness through intelligent production, high-end products, and service-oriented manufacturing. By enhancing the value-added service capabilities of existing production capacity, it has actively seized market resources and set an example in promoting the service-oriented transformation of the manufacturing industry.
Those who seek the growth of wood must solidify its foundation, and those who want to flow far must dredge its source. “The transformation of shipbuilding enterprises towards service-oriented manufacturing is not a” de manufacturing “aimed at weakening or abandoning manufacturing, but a higher level transformation based on ocean engineering equipment and high-tech ship manufacturing capabilities. Whether it is a shift from processing and assembly as the main focus to “manufacturing+services”, or a shift from simply selling products to selling “products+services”, essentially creating greater value for the shipping and marine resource development industry chain through services. China’s shipbuilding enterprises should move towards service-oriented manufacturing, derive more service demands by enhancing their independent research and development capabilities, occupy the high-end of the industrial value chain, and promote the optimization and upgrading of the shipbuilding industry from large to strong.