Everything-as-a-Service in manufacturing: a literature analysis and a definition

Currently, several companies are progressively transitioning from an offering focused on products to providing services and solutions, a phenomenon known as servitization. Manufacturers address this transformation in order to face competition, meet the growing demand for a more flexible offering, minimize capital expenditure, and exploit the opportunities offered by digitalization. Thus, new business models which a focus on selling the usage or outcome of a product rather than the product itself are increasingly receiving attention, as they can give companies the possibility to establish long-term partnerships with customers by providing solutions on a continuous basis in return for recurring payments. In recent years, this approach has become popular, particularly in the management community, with the term "Everything-as-a-service" (XaaS). The concept of XaaS has its origin in the information technology domain but, given the context described above, its application is becoming today more and more relevant for manufacturing companies. Various declinations of the XaaS concept in manufacturing have emerged, generally linked to the sales object and the application sector (e.g. Equipment-as-a-service, Consumable-as service, Heat-as-a-Service, …). Moreover, the literature on this topic appears very fragmented and scattered across several similar and well-established research domains, such as servitization, integrated solutions, and product-service systems. Thus, a clear and agreed definition of the term is still lacking today and the boundaries of application are also unclear. In order to fill these gaps, this paper provides a structured analysis of the literature, in order to: i) define the current state of art, ii) identify the key elements and characteristics and iii) provide a new comprehensive definition of the XaaS paradigm in manufacturing.