Further expansion from smart manufacturing system (SMS) to social smart manufacturing system (SSMS) based on industrial internet

The Industrial Internet (II) is driving the evolution of the manufacturing industry characterized by socially-engagement, servitization, universal interaction, and connection. With a single technical perspective, the requirements of “Sociality” and “Smartness” for future factories are often confused. The motivation of this study is to fill the existing gaps and provide practical knowledge for exploring how to design, synthesize, implement, and deploy a social smart manufacturing system (SSMS). Through an in-depth industrial practice investigation based on cooperative inquiry, an innovative factory model, namely II-supported SSMS, was proposed and synthesized for establishing a socialized aerospace part machining service ecosystem. The II-supported SSMS has been implemented and demonstrated via testbed validation. Furthermore, useful and portable practical knowledge was elicited from the industrial practice. A detailed six-step system architecture and a structural and hierarchical implementation strategy were presented, revealing the reference subsystem, integration logic, main technology tenants, and critical implementation processes of II-supported SSMS. Finally, the practical value and useful insights of II-supported SSMS were analyzed from the aspects of functionality, efficiency, flexibility, smartness, anthropocentric production, interconnectedness, collaborative intelligence, and scalability and portability. The potential risks, challenges, and barriers also were discussed.