Shared manufacturing in the sharing economy: Concept, definition and service operations

Abstract

Sharing Economy promotes Shared Manufacturing (SharedMfg) that allows self-organized individuals to get involved in manufacturing activities through peer-to-peer (P2P) collaborations. It extends the scope and depth of resources sharing and enables society-based manufacturing integration. SharedMfg is complex and is still in its infancy. It demands encouraging research to clarify the concept and understand the key operations. In this paper, the SharedMfg is analysed along with two significant manufacturing evolutional trends, (i.e., Servitization and Industry 4.0). Based on this, to reduce the complexities in operations, the concept and definition of SharedMfg are presented on the basis of a service hierarchy that includes Product-Service System, Configuration-Service System and Resource-Service System. At the same time, this paper looks SharedMfg as an independent socialization manufacturing mode (e.g. compared with Cloud Manufacturing), and also, the benefit in contributing to the integration of the manufacturing and service sectors is revealed. However, apart from the complexity, high-degree dynamics and uncertainties related to service operations challenge the application of SharedMfg as well. To meet both requirements, based on the construction of a three-dimensional SharedMfg Service (SMS) modelling framework, a hybrid integration and interoperable SharedMfg architecture is proposed to ensure the provision of SMS in efficiency and effectiveness. Furthermore, a dynamic SMS scheduling method in support of the technologies of Complex Network Analysis is presented. A case study associated with the networked fabrication of an assistive glove is applied by implementing a prototype system to validate the proposed frameworks and methods. Finally, an experiment for evaluating the efficiency of service matching is carried out to prove the SharedMfg that can provide better performance than Cloud Manufacturing and Social Manufacturing.