Modelling and Theoretical Analysis of Membership-type Services in Manufacturing Industries

In manufacturing industries, membership-type services such as car-sharing services are becoming widely used. It is important to elucidate the usefulness of such services in light of servicizing manufacturing industries. This paper defines and analyses ‘membership-type services in manufacturing’ using a game theoretic framework including consumers and manufacturers, wherein products and its functions are provided as services. Results show that regarding some parameters related to production cost, manufacturers should shift to servicizing their products in cases where costs are high; conventional production and sales as a physical product is profitable in cases where costs are low. Furthermore, introduction of membership-type services can yield great profit and social surplus.