A Manufacturing Network Modeling and Evolution Characterizing Approach for Self-Organization among Distributed MSMEs under Social Manufacturing Context

Abstract

In the manufacturing industry, cross-enterprise resource sharing has emerged among micro-and-small-scale manufacturing enterprises (called social manufacturing nodes, SMNs) with similar manufacturing resources. In this context, social manufacturing is proposed to promote resource sharing among SMNs through order sharing in manufacturing communities (MCs) on the network platform. In social manufacturing, SMNs are geographically distributed and peer-to-peer, and MCs are formed by the self-organization among SMNs. However, because of the distributed and peer-to-peer characteristic of SMNs, the efficiency of SMNs self-organizing into MCs is relatively low, and the scope of self-organization is also relatively narrow. After MCs are formed, the structure of MCs is time-varying, and the evolution information of MCs is helpful for the smooth operation of the network platform. For these problems, this paper proposes a manufacturing network modeling and evolution characterizing approach. Firstly, distributed SMNs are clustered into overlapping MCs by the speaker-listener label propagation algorithm. Based on the clustering result, SMNs are recommended to each other as potential partners, by which they can quickly self-organize into MCs. On the other hand, seven fundamental events are defined to characterize the evolution of MCs on the network platform. From the evolution of MCs, the manager of the network platform get useful information for the smooth operation of the network platform. The feasibility of the proposed approach is verified by a simulation case.