Tim Baines

Tim Baines is a leading academic in operations strategy and one of the most influential global voices in the field of servitization and advanced services.

He holds the Chair in Operations Strategy at Aston Business School and is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Advanced Services Group (ASG), an internationally recognised research centre focused on helping manufacturing and industrial firms transition from product-centric models to service-led, outcome-based business models. Over the last two decades, ASG has become a key hub connecting academia, industry, and policy to accelerate this transformation globally.

Tim Baines’ work sits at the intersection of operations management, business model innovation, and industrial strategy. He has spent over 25 years developing frameworks and empirical insights into how firms such as Airbus, Boeing, Rolls-Royce, Caterpillar, Ford, and Thales evolve toward “servitized” offerings—shifting from selling products to delivering guaranteed outcomes, availability, or performance as a service.

His academic foundation spans Cranfield University (where he previously held a professorship), along with research fellowships at MIT and Auburn University. Earlier in his career, he also worked directly in manufacturing contexts, which strongly informs his applied, industry-relevant research approach. He has published extensively in leading journals in operations and production management and has contributed significantly to shaping both European research agendas and industrial policy around advanced services.

As a practitioner-academic, he is also a key convenor of global networks such as the Spring Servitization Conference and ASG’s executive programmes, where senior leaders explore how to design, implement, and scale service-based business models.