Social factory as a production node of social manufacturing

Social factory is served as the production node of social manufacturing communities/network to make manufacturing factories shift to the internet-based ones. The social factory aims to deal with fast-changing production requirements, sharing and competing of product orders, flexible resource configuration, ubiquitous interconnections, and real-time production monitoring and control. To achieve these visions, an extended cyber-physical system-enabled social factory model is proposed by integrating current cyber-physical system with machining equipment, social sensors, and smart workpieces. Within the proposed social factory model, the system framework and runtime logic are presented, and some core concepts such as extended cyber-physical system node, social sensor, and smart workpiece are clarified. Based on that, the social factory model is implemented by developing diverse extended cyber-physical system nodes and then connecting them with humans to form a collaborative production network where humans can access and control the machines anywhere and anytime. To validate the proposed social factory framework, a flexible production line in our lab is regarded as an extended cyber-physical system-enabled social factory to demonstrate the decentralized production interaction and cooperation.