Social media in manufacturing: Just hype or concrete benefits?

Abstract

This paper aims to provide novel ideas for capturing tacit knowledge in order to enrich the product life-time information used in product design, process planning, and manufacturing. In this paper, a case from the factory floor is presented. For capturing the tacit knowledge, different social media applications and mobile tablets can be used effectively. The captured tacit knowledge, that hold both feedback and context in its creation time, can be connected to a semantically rich, formal, and machine-readable knowledge representation that combines product, process, and resource descriptions. The paper presents novel and innovative concept that can enhance design collaboration and co-creation by lowering the barriers between different design domains. One of the possible solutions is presented here and it is expected to lower costs of design in manufacturing industry as consumer needs, manufacturing realities, and rapidly developing media technology are holistically put together.