How to Develop Service-oriented Manufacturing with Chinese Characteristics

With the accelerated iterative upgrading and expanded application of new-generation information technology, and the deepening integration of industries, service-oriented manufacturing has become an important direction for manufacturing development. 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)", which clearly states that it will effectively promote the optimization of resource allocation in manufacturing, expand new development space, extend the industrial chain, and enhance the value chain, laying a solid foundation for building a service-oriented manufacturing system with Chinese characteristics and world-class standards. The proposal for the 15th Five-Year Plan [1]1 The 15th Five-Year Plan refers to China's national economic and social development plan for the period 2026–2030, a key state planning document that sets strategic priorities. also emphasizes promoting the digital and intelligent transformation of manufacturing and developing intelligent manufacturing, green manufacturing, and service-oriented manufacturing. So, what is service-oriented manufacturing? And how to develop service-oriented manufacturing with Chinese characteristics?

随着新一代信息技术加速迭代升级和应用拓展，产业融合发展不断深化，服务型制造已成为制造业发展的重要方向。2025年，工业和信息化部等7部门印发《深入推动服务型制造创新发展实施方案（2025—2028年）》，明确提出有力促进制造业优化资源配置、拓展发展新空间、延伸产业链、提升价值链，为建成具有中国特色、世界水平的服务型制造体系奠定坚实基础。“十五五”规划建议亦强调，促进制造业数智化转型，发展智能制造、绿色制造、服务型制造。那么，何为服务型制造？又如何发展具有中国特色的服务型制造？

Service-oriented manufacturing refers to increasing the proportion of service elements in enterprise production and operation, prompting the main business model of enterprises to shift from producing and selling products to providing "products + services." It differs from production-oriented manufacturing, which centers on "products," and emphasizes extending service links to the entire chain, including R&D and design, production processes, and operation and maintenance, achieving deep integration of manufacturing and services. Currently, global manufacturing competition has evolved into overall competition in value chains and ecosystems, and service-oriented manufacturing is a key lever in this regard. For China, the service-oriented manufacturing to be developed not only possesses universal characteristics but also forms its own features based on local resources and advantages. Compared with the general model, China's service-oriented manufacturing places greater emphasis on close alignment with the national direction of industrial upgrading, highlighting the synergistic effect of national strategic guidance, the super-large market, and digital technology. Its characteristics may be more reflected in two aspects. On the one hand, relying on the multi-level demand nurtured by the super-large market and the application scenarios of the entire industrial chain, it promotes manufacturing enterprises to open up differentiated tracks and achieve cluster-style ascension to the high end of the value chain. On the other hand, it strengthens digital empowerment, takes the integration of the real economy and the digital economy as the main line, and systematically reshapes the competitiveness of manufacturing by improving product reliability, production and operation efficiency, and industrial chain coordination.

服务型制造是指通过增加企业生产经营中服务要素的比重，促使企业的主要经营模式从生产、销售产品转向提供“产品+服务”。它区别于以“产品”为核心的生产型制造，强调将服务环节向研发设计、生产过程和运营维护等全链条延伸，实现制造与服务深度融合。当前，全球制造业的竞争已演变为价值链和生态系统的整体竞争，服务型制造正是其中的关键抓手。对我国而言，所要发展的服务型制造既具备普遍特征，也立足本土资源和优势形成自身特色。与一般模式相比，中国的服务型制造更注重与国家产业升级方向紧密衔接，强调更多发挥国家战略引领、超大规模市场与数字技术的协同效应。其特色可能更多体现在两个方面。一方面，依托超大规模市场所孕育的多层次需求和全产业链应用场景，推动制造业企业开辟差异化赛道，实现向价值链高端的集群式攀升；另一方面，强化数字赋能，以实体经济和数字经济融合为主线，通过提升产品可靠性、生产运营效率和产业链协同水平，系统性重塑制造业竞争力。

Overall, developing service-oriented manufacturing with Chinese characteristics also means developing service-oriented manufacturing with world-class standards. This is both a key path to transforming China's advantages of a super-large market and a complete industrial system into sustainable competitiveness, and an urgent need to address the practical challenges of China's manufacturing transformation and upgrading.

综合来看，发展具有中国特色的服务型制造，也意味着要发展具有世界水平的服务型制造。这既是将我国超大规模市场和完整产业体系优势转化为可持续竞争力的关键路径，也是应对我国制造业转型升级现实挑战的迫切需要。

China already has a realistic foundation for promoting the construction of a manufacturing powerhouse by relying on service-oriented manufacturing. Supported by both a complete industrial system and a super-large market, Chinese manufacturing not only has the ability to upgrade from providing single products to offering system solutions covering the entire product life cycle, but can also achieve rapid trial-and-error iteration in massive and rich application scenarios, forming industry standards and quality services, which in turn drives product upgrades and effectively enhances the resilience and international competitiveness of the industrial chain.

我国已具备依托服务型制造推进制造强国建设的现实基础。在完整产业体系和超大规模市场的双重支撑下，中国制造既具备将单一产品供给升级为提供覆盖产品全生命周期系统解决方案的能力，又能在海量而丰富的应用场景中实现快速试错迭代，形成行业标准和品质化服务，反向牵引产品升级，有效增强产业链韧性和国际竞争力。

Service-oriented manufacturing technology is becoming a key support for consolidating China's leading position in manufacturing. In fields such as high-end equipment, new energy, and intelligent manufacturing, China's service-oriented manufacturing technology has reached an advanced international level. By embedding the technological advantages of service-oriented manufacturing into the product usage end and the entire life cycle, it is possible to create an industrial chain closed loop from data collection to continuous product iteration. This can not only enhance customer stickiness and operational efficiency but also achieve sustainable premium from product delivery to value co-creation.

服务型制造技术正成为巩固我国制造业领先地位的关键支撑。在高端装备、新能源、智能制造等领域，我国服务型制造技术已达到国际先进水平。通过把服务型制造的技术优势嵌入产品使用端和全生命周期，能够打造从数据采集到产品持续迭代的产业链闭环，不仅可以提升客户黏性和运营效率，还能够实现从产品交付到价值共创的可持续溢价。

Developing service-oriented manufacturing helps to break through resource and environmental constraints through connotative growth. Under increasingly tight resource and environmental constraints, the traditional growth model of "competing on production capacity and costs" is unsustainable. Service-oriented manufacturing can extend value creation from one-time sales to the entire product life cycle, increasing product added value and customer stickiness through links such as delivery, operation and maintenance, upgrading, and remanufacturing, pushing enterprises from price competition to competition in quality, brand, and solutions, and achieving connotative growth under limited resource conditions.

发展服务型制造有助于以内涵式增长突破资源环境约束。在资源环境约束日趋紧张的情况下，传统“拼产能、拼成本”的增长方式难以为继。服务型制造可把价值创造从一次性销售延伸到产品的全生命周期，通过交付、运维、升级、再制造等环节提升产品附加值和客户黏性，推动企业从价格竞争转向质量、品牌和解决方案竞争，在有限资源条件下实现内涵式增长。

Service-oriented manufacturing emphasizes promoting the coordinated development of the industrial ecosystem. Relying on platform-based services and standardized interfaces, China's development of service-oriented manufacturing insists on 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 among upstream and downstream enterprises. This not only enables a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises to share the development achievements of advanced manufacturing and deeply integrate into the industrial network, but also enhances the sustainable development capacity of the entire industrial chain.

服务型制造强调促进产业生态协同发展。依托平台化服务和标准化接口，我国的服务型制造发展坚持向产业链上下游开放研发、制造和运维能力，带动上下游协同创新和专业化分工。这不仅使广大中小企业能够共享先进制造的发展成果、深度融入产业网络，而且从整体上增强了产业链的可持续发展能力。

Building a manufacturing powerhouse is inseparable from developing service-oriented manufacturing with distinctive features. This is not a simple superposition of a few service manufacturing links, but must follow the industrial evolution logic of using demand to guide direction, technology to improve efficiency, systems to support development, and institutions to 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 there are still development shortcomings. Its high-quality development should be promoted from the following aspects.

建设制造强国离不开发展特色鲜明的服务型制造，这并非几个服务制造环节的简单叠加，而要遵循以需求牵引方向、以技术提升效率、以体系支撑发展、以制度降低摩擦的产业演进逻辑，切实发挥服务型制造的支撑作用。近年来，我国服务型制造发展持续加快，但仍存在发展短板，应从以下几个方面促进其高质量发展。

First, build a full-chain digital service system and consolidate the digital service foundation. Relying on China's complete industrial system foundation, accelerate the construction of a digital service system covering the entire chain and all links, including R&D, production, and operation and maintenance, enhance the flexible manufacturing and agile response capabilities of enterprises, and better meet the market demand for large-scale customization. The focus should be on strengthening technological empowerment, taking digital and intelligent technology as the development foundation of service-oriented manufacturing, strengthening the construction of new-type information infrastructure, deploying computing power infrastructure as needed, and promoting the integrated innovation of artificial intelligence technology and service-oriented manufacturing.

一是构建全链条数字服务体系，筑牢数字服务底座。依托我国完备的工业体系基础，加快建成覆盖研发、生产、运维等全链条全环节的数字服务系统，提升企业柔性制造和敏捷响应能力，更好满足市场规模化定制需求。重点要强化技术赋能，把数智技术作为服务型制造的发展底座，加强新型信息基础设施建设，按需布局算力基础设施，推动人工智能技术与服务型制造融合创新。

Second, cultivate and strengthen key service-oriented manufacturing industries and consolidate the foundation of service capabilities. China's producer services industry is developing well, with sub-sectors continuously expanding, and has formed an industrial ecosystem deeply coordinated with manufacturing. It is necessary to focus on key areas, promote the deep integration of manufacturing and services in technology, business formats, and models, improve efficiency through specialized division of labor, break through transformation bottlenecks through innovation-driven development, and build a service-oriented manufacturing system that is adapted to the industrial foundation and has both efficiency and resilience.

二是培育壮大重点服务型制造产业，夯实服务能力根基。我国生产性服务业发展态势良好，细分领域持续拓展，已形成与制造业深度协同的产业生态。需聚焦重点领域，推动制造和服务在技术、业态、模式上深度融合，以专业化分工提升效率，以创新驱动破解转型瓶颈，构建适配产业基础、兼具效率和韧性的服务型制造体系。

Third, build a unified national market to better promote industrial integration. In this process, it is necessary to both unify rules, smooth the flow of factors, break down barriers between manufacturing and services, online and offline, and regions, and promote the cross-regional and cross-scenario replication and promotion of service-oriented manufacturing models. At the same time, it is necessary to strengthen fair competition, break down local protection and administrative monopolies, and promote the efficient allocation of data, talent, capital, and other factors across the country, thereby comprehensively reducing the coordination costs of industrial integration and forming an institutional environment conducive to the large-scale development of service-oriented manufacturing.

三是建设全国统一大市场，更好推动产业融合。在这一过程中，既要通过统一规则，畅通要素流动，破除制造与服务、线上与线下、区域之间的壁垒，推动服务型制造模式跨区域、跨场景复制推广，又要强化公平竞争，破除地方保护和行政性垄断，促进数据、人才、资本等要素在全国范围内高效配置，从而全方位降低产业融合的协同成本，形成有利于服务型制造规模化发展的制度环境。

Fourth, strengthen the dominant position of enterprises and stimulate endogenous market momentum. China has a large number of manufacturing enterprises covering the entire industrial chain. It should give full play to their advantages of being close to the market and familiar with the industry, encourage enterprises to actively explore service-oriented transformation paths based on their own conditions, internal endowments, and development stages, enhance their penetration of the industrial chain and their responsiveness to market demand, and inject vitality into building service-oriented manufacturing with Chinese characteristics.

四是强化企业主体地位，激发市场内生动力。我国拥有数量庞大、覆盖全产业链的制造企业群体，应充分发挥其贴近市场、熟悉行业的优势，鼓励企业基于自身条件和内在禀赋以及发展阶段，主动探索服务化转型路径，增强对产业链的渗透力和对市场需求的响应力，为打造具有中国特色的服务型制造注入活力。

(The author is a special researcher of the Chongqing Research Center for the Theory of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and a professor at the School of Economics and Management, Southwest University.)

（作者系重庆市中国特色社会主义理论体系研究中心特约研究员、西南大学经济管理学院教授）