Advanced manufacturing systems: socialization characteristics and trends

Since 1960s, with the development of societal and related technologies, many advanced manufacturing systems (AMSs) and modes have been put forward, and they have attracted the attention of a large number of researchers in manufacturing, information and management fields. However, existing studies are mainly focused on the specific theoretical research of each AMS, and the horizontal comparison of the difference and evolution of these AMSs are not significant. Furthermore, most of the existing studies try to realize concrete technical implementation, and discussions on the relationship among these AMSs and social factors are relatively rare. Therefore, this paper aims to address this issue, and a brief overview of the development process of AMSs is first presented. Next, a tri-view model is established to analyze the evolution and socialization characteristics of AMSs. It is found that the sharing of manufacturing resources and capabilities, the value creation carriers, the value measuring criteria, the composition of the value chain and enterprise collaboration, and the user participation in manufacturing are all moving towards socialization. It is essential that the evolution and development of AMSs should also adapt this trend towards socialization in order to achieve better sharing of limited resources and efficient adding of value.