Social Sensors (S²ensors): A Kind of Hardware-Software-Integrated Mediators for Social Manufacturing Systems Under Mass Individualization

Currently, little work has been devoted to the mediators and tools for multi-role production interactions in the mass individualization environment. This paper proposes a kind of hardware-software-integrated mediators called social sensors (S²ensors) to facilitate the production interactions among customers, manufacturers, and other stakeholders in the social manufacturing systems (SMS). The concept, classification, operational logics, and formalization of S²ensors are clarified. S²ensors collect subjective data from physical sensors and objective data from sensory input in mobile Apps, merge them into meaningful information for decision-making, and finally feed the decisions back for reaction and execution. Then, an S²ensors-Cloud platform is discussed to integrate different S²ensors to work for SMSs in an autonomous way. A demonstrative case is studied by developing a prototype system and the results show that S²ensors and S²ensors-Cloud platform can assist multi-role stakeholders interact and collaborate for the production tasks. It reveals the mediator-enabled mechanisms and methods for production interactions among stakeholders in SMS.