Cloud-based design and manufacturing systems: A social network analysis

Abstract

A Cloud-Based Design and Manufacturing (CBDM) System refers to an information and communication technology (ICT) system that facilitates design and manufacturing knowledge sharing between actors (e.g., CBDM service providers and consumers) in the distributed and collaborative socio-technical network. The aim of this study is to address the challenge of information sharing and technical communication during the CBDM product development process. Specifically, we model a CBDM system as a socio-technical network. The research questions are: (1) What measures can be used to analyze the socio-technical network generated by CBDM? (2) How to detect communities/clusters and key actors in the socio-technical network? To answer these questions, a social network analysis (SNA) approach is formulated to analyze the socio-technical network generated by CBDM systems. The results indicate that SNA allows for visualizing collaborative relationship patterns of actors as well as detecting the community structure of CBDM systems. © 2013 The Design Society.