A Case Study in Social Manufacturing: From Social Manufacturing to Social Value Chain

Abstract

A new manufacturing mode, called social manufacturing, has been developing widely, and employed in many enterprises across the business value chain in recent years. Faced with this increasing dynamic, both enterprises and customers have to be more aware of the potential opportunity and benefit to be derived from this new manufacturing mode. One benefit is more value-adding potential for both enterprises upstream and customers downstream across the business value chain, compared with the normal mode. This research extends the application of social manufacturing to the entire business value chain system to bring new opportunities and value-adding potential for enterprises. This paper proposes a social value chain system that applies the social manufacturing mode to the entire value chain and contributes to three areas: (1) a new way of thinking for enterprises to create new opportunities to add value throughout the value chain by employing the social manufacturing mode; (2) establishing the social value chain system for all participants/enterprises across the chain in order to gain a win–win situation for all participants; and (3) suggesting some idea of a suitable performance measurement to monitor and evaluate the proposed social value chain system.