The configuration of social manufacturing: A social intelligence way toward service-oriented manufacturing

The goal of manufacturing no longer lies in making products in a system level but extends to the systematic processing of information and resources to create more flexible and timely service for mass individualised needs of customers in a global level. As new materials, new technology such as social computing and new configurations for the manufacturer emerge, the distinctions among mechatronics, manufacturing, and service industries become blurred. Consequently, it is expected that the definitions of manufacturing become even broader. This paper presents a novel concept of social intelligence way toward service-oriented manufacturing termed social manufacturing. The social intelligent techniques are introduced as embedding knowledge in the configuration outsourcing and crowdsourcing-oriented social manufacturing for the whole life cycle of mass individualisation process. As a result, the social manufacturing with advanced characteristics such as distributed, intelligent, and self-organisation is developed in which a novel approach for enabling mass individualised production is proposed.