Towards a Social Internet of Things Enabled Framework for Supply Community Networks

Social Internet of Things (SIoT) is one of several emerging internet paradigms, signaling the inevitable fusion of Internet of Things with Social Networks. This paper demonstrates the feasibility of applying an existing SIoT framework to Supply Community Networks (SCN). a term we use to describe the changing pattern of supply chains whose morphology continues to evolve from traditional linear continuums, into ostensibly mesh-like structures. Specifically, we identify an appropriate SIoT architecture from current literature which was used as a basis for realizing the notion of SCN, where in this case the ‘members’ are autonomous objects (Supply Community Agents, or SCA) working on behalf of member organizations (suppliers, manufacturers, retailers, etc.) and whose generic object architecture we extended by specifying interfaces to various member functions that all such agents must possess to engage in the exchange of goods/services information and remittance one would expect whether part of a chain or as here, a network (or networks). We substantiate our claims of feasibility using stochastic MATLAB simulation of a baked-goods SCN scenario. Results showed that the modified SIoT framework exhibited the flexibility required by SCAs when operating as part of a Supply Community Network so that they can effectively discharge their responsibilities in delivering the services needed by other member agents of a SCN.