Servitization of Machine-Tool Trading Company to Value Orchestration Platform: Visualization of Japanese Integral-Modular Strategie

It is controversial whether or not Japanese manufacturing is already in decline and the Japanese model of manufacturing that drove past decades of the industrial and economic growth has lost the power. It is though true that Japan needs to develop a new and innovative business model for manufacturing in the years ahead. The present paper aims at (1) arguing that Japanese manufacturing requires transformation from integral-technology-based to modular-technology-based as well as their co-existence and (2) visualizing strategies for supporting them in practical terms. We in particular claim that in the transformation Machine-Tool Trading (MTT) companies should play a crucial role in getting servitizatized and functioning as project producers. We discuss roles and functions to be expected from servitized MTT companies by using the value orchestration platform model with quality control 7 tools as a reference. We also illustrate a roadmap for an MTT company to be servitized based on some real observations as well as the authors’ experiences.