Against the backdrop of a prolonged and profound adjustment in the global shipbuilding market, how can the shipbuilding industry drive innovation in business models and industrial formats to achieve structural reform and transformation? Recent practices in China’s manufacturing sector demonstrate that developing new service‑oriented manufacturing models represents a key breakthrough for the shipbuilding industry’s transformation, upgrading, and the cultivation of new growth drivers. Service‑oriented manufacturing refers to a novel industrial paradigm in which manufacturing and services are integrated and coexist in a mutually reinforcing manner. As an important component of high‑end equipment manufacturing, the shipbuilding industry possesses the foundational strengths and favorable conditions to take the lead in advancing China’s journey toward becoming a world‑class manufacturing powerhouse. To this end, China’s shipbuilding industry must innovate its production organization, operational management, and business models; extend its service value chain; offer comprehensive “production + service” solutions; enhance quality and efficiency; strengthen competitive advantages; and thereby accomplish structural adjustment and transformation—making its due contribution to building a strong manufacturing nation.
As the international shipping market and global crude oil prices remain persistently depressed, the global shipbuilding sector has entered a period of profound adjustment, posing unprecedented challenges to China’s shipbuilding and offshore engineering industries. Overcapacity and insufficient demand have become the primary constraints hindering the development of China’s shipbuilding industry. Consequently, production‑driven manufacturing that relies solely on expanding scale can no longer sustain growth; transitioning to service‑oriented manufacturing has emerged as a critical pathway for shipbuilders to enhance competitiveness and capture profitability. Today, in sectors such as aerospace and defense, automotive manufacturing, industrial automation, telecommunications equipment, and life sciences and medical devices, services are increasingly serving as a key source of revenue for manufacturers. This trend underscores that only by addressing the短板 of “services” can shipbuilders seize the opportunities presented by the ongoing servitization of global manufacturing and advance steadily amid intensifying market competition. More importantly, amid deep shifts in the global competitive landscape, developing service‑oriented manufacturing is an essential prerequisite for China’s shipbuilding industry to reconfigure its competitive advantages. Major shipbuilding nations are accelerating their transition toward a “manufacturing + services” model, placing particular emphasis on investments in technology, knowledge, information, and services. As traditional comparative advantages erode, fostering this shift toward service‑based manufacturing will help propel China’s shipbuilding industry to secure a leading position in the evolving competitive environment.
Service‑oriented manufacturing is a crucial pathway for fostering deep integration between the manufacturing and service sectors, enhancing China’s core manufacturing competitiveness, and driving industrial transformation and upgrading, and it has received strong support from the national government. Policies such as “Made in China 2025,” the “Special Action Guide for Developing Service‑Oriented Manufacturing,” and the “Action Plan for Enhancing Capabilities in the Shipbuilding Supporting Industries (2016–2020)” have all charted a clear course for the shipbuilding industry to cultivate new service‑oriented business models. To seize these policy opportunities, the shipbuilding sector must fully leverage its existing strengths and make concerted efforts to nurture and develop innovative service‑oriented manufacturing formats. On one hand, by harnessing emerging technologies such as digitalization, networking, and intelligent systems, the industry can launch a comprehensive market‑driven offensive, establish service‑oriented manufacturing models characterized by the sharing economy, accelerate its transformation, and break through adverse market conditions. At the same time, it should vigorously expand diversified services—offering extended value‑added offerings in areas such as design, customization, collaborative manufacturing, supply chain management, product lifecycle management, system solutions, and information‑based value creation—so that its scope of operations spans the entire product lifecycle, thereby achieving all‑round, wide‑ranging, and deep‑level integration of manufacturing and services.
On the other hand, it is essential to shift from a “product‑oriented” to a “customer‑oriented” approach. For instance, rather than merely providing safe, cost‑effective, and suitable equipment for offshore oil and gas development, companies should offer end‑to‑end “technology plus business” solutions tailored to the entire lifecycle of oil and gas operations. In recent years, China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation has enhanced its competitive edge by advancing intelligent manufacturing, upgrading product sophistication, and embracing service‑oriented production. By bolstering the value‑added service capabilities of its existing capacity, it has proactively captured market opportunities, setting a benchmark in driving the transformation of manufacturing toward greater service‑orientation.
“Those who seek the long growth of a tree must first secure its roots; those who wish a stream to flow far must first deepen its source.” For shipbuilding enterprises, transitioning toward service‑oriented manufacturing is not about de‑manufacturing or abandoning manufacturing altogether, but rather about building on their strengths in offshore engineering equipment and high‑tech shipbuilding to pursue higher‑level transformation. Whether shifting from a model centered on processing and assembly to one that integrates “manufacturing + services,” or moving from simply selling products to offering “products + services,” the underlying goal is to leverage services to generate greater value across industrial chains such as shipping and marine resource development. Chinese shipbuilders must advance along the path of service‑oriented manufacturing, enhancing their independent R&D capabilities to create additional service‑related demand, capture the high end of the industry value chain, and drive the optimization and upgrading of the shipbuilding sector—transforming it from large to strong.
