Towards a Framework for Future Driven Supply Chain Networks using Social Internet of Things

Two decades ago, the convergence of computing, embedded sensors and network technology ushered in the Internet of Things (IoT) as a means of delivering intelligent services. The ' things' in question - smart objects large and small - are collectively weaving themselves into the fabric of society, underpinning scores of smart city programs worldwide (including the Thailand 4.0 initiative). IoT is reaping massive benefits for industry too, especially in supply chain management (SCM) which provides our focus here. More recently, Social Internet of Things (SIoT) signalled the fusion of IoT with social structure phenomena, enabling formation of trust-based communities among the afore-said objects - herein supply chain agents - similar to that of established social networks. Whilst SCM spearheaded use of IoT, we envisage SIoT enabled supply chains capable of dealing with both long standing issues ( e.g. lead-time logistics and the bullwhip effect), but also a raft of contemporary challenges (e.g. devolved company operations and, stiffer quality compliance demands) which we assert, pare down, to matters of information management and trust in that information. These supply communities are based on smart objects that mimic behaviour of humans ( and organizations) within a social network context. Thus they exist within their own social networks, playing autonomously by rules exerted by humans to protect their privacy and control interactions within other objects. Here we apply an existing theoretical framework and smart object architectures to our notion of supply chain communities, characterized by appeal to a worked example highlighting how a SIoT-oriented supply network can mitigate the problems stated. This is a work in progress