Manufacturing-as-a-Service (MaaS) to Increase Value Chain Resilience and Circularity: Towards a Systematic Methodology for Manufacturing Process Servitization and Value Chain Orchestration

In the current dynamic, volatile, and uncertain world, manufacturing companies face increasing pressure to respond efficiently and rapidly to disruptions, while at the same time adopting sustainable and circular practices. This paper focuses on Manufacturing-as-a-Service (MaaS) for enhancing resilience and promoting circularity in manufacturing value chains. Based on the limitations of existing MaaS research and scarcity of implementations, a systematic methodology is proposed for manufacturing process servitization, manufacturing process and product matching, and manufacturing process connection, collaboration and execution. This methodology supports the scaling of MaaS to a large variety of manufacturing processes, enabling dynamic distributed networks of manufacturing resources. Resiliency enhancing processes are outlined using MaaS for creating alternative value chain orchestrations, as responses to disruptions. Moreover, processes promoting circularity in relation to MaaS and resilience are outlined. This act as support for finding appropriate value chains partners to enable a circular product system and in increasing resilience and circularity simultaneously by reusing and remanufacturing critical components.