Emerging synthesis of social manufacturing

CITATION: Steenkamp, L. P., et al. 2016. Emerging synthesis of social manufacturing. In Competitive Manufacturing, International Conference on Competitive Manufacturing (COMA '16), 27-29 January 2016, Stellenbosch, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.The original publication is available at http://conferences.sun.ac.za/index.php/doie/coma16Manufacturing systems has changed constantly throughout the years and new theory towards value creation is emerging. The latest manufacturing paradigm is described as social manufacturing which uses open design platforms. Open design platforms could give the hands of every individual the means to produce physical objects or products. Nowadays, with the wave of the Internet of Things (IoT) people can participate from global communities to contribute to the innovation process. Everybody can use existing design tools and solutions on open platforms. This will ensure co-creation to produce even more solutions. Social manufacturing harnesses the emerging synthesis from open design platforms and the manufacturing capability that is embedded within the online community platform, whereby the users co-manufacturer their own products. This paper discusses an one week challenge case study that investigates the possibility of completing the open design process of a product during a limited timespan using social manufacturing techniques. This case study proved that a product can be crowd sourced and delivered within a week. These results showed that the desired industrial cluster could be reached. These social elements are promising for future manufacturing businesses.AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Geen opsomming beskikbaarPublishers versio