This programme will establish evidence on how servitization impacts both economic productivity and environmental performance (i.e., net-zero and the green economy), and use these insights to influence industrial policy and practice in the UK. It will explain whether, when, and how to encourage the adoption of servitization to maximise the economic and societal impact. The programme will begin by (i) developing a strong theoretical foundation based on prior research on business model innovation and value networks, then (ii) engage in theory building through collaborations with a range of industrial partners that are adopting servitization. These insights will (iii) enable econometric models to quantify impacts on productivity and environmental performances, and through experimentations with these (iv) identify a range of scenarios to maximise the benefits to the UK. Deliverables will include (i) an open-access repository for the scientific, policy, and practice communities, (ii) a set of reference models which will allow firms to translate our findings quickly to shape industrial best practices, and (iii) a series of policy and practice papers and associated workshops and events to influence decisions around industrial policy associated with productivity and de-carbonisation.

The future prosperity of the UK will increasingly depend on building and maintaining a resilient and sustainable manufacturing sector that can respond to changing supply and demand by adapting, repurposing, relocating and reusing available production capabilities. The pandemic which emerged in 2020 has influenced our perspective of future manufacturing operations and, in particular, has brought into focus the capacity challenges of delivering critical products and maintaining production in the face of major disruptions. It also accelerated the emerging trend for more localised, greener and cost-competitive indigenous manufacturing infrastructure with the ability to produce a wider set of complex products faster, better and cheaper. To meet the long-term structural and post-pandemic challenges, we need transformative new methods of building and utilising future factories by embracing complexity, uncertainty and data intensity in a dynamic and rapidly changing world. The "Morphing Factory" Made Smarter Centre aims to deliver a platform for next generation resilient connected manufacturing services. It will allow future manufacturing operations to be delivered by ubiquitous production units that can be easily repurposed, relocated and redeployed in response to changing market demand. This vision will be delivered through 3 closely related strands: (1) An underpinning fundamental research programme to define the principles, methods and models for future morphing factories in terms of architecture, topology, configuration methods, IoT digital awareness, in-process monitoring and AI based autonomous control. (50%). (2) A dynamic challenge-driven applied research programme to address emerging industrial needs and validate and demonstrate the results through a set of application studies including smart machining, production integrated 3D printing and autonomous assembly integrated into a common hyperconnected morphing factory cloud (45%). (3) A programme of networking and engagement activities with other ISCF Made Smarter research and innovation centres, industry and the general public to maximise the impact of the research, encourage accelerated technology uptake and increase the public awareness (5%).