Shared manufacturing and the sharing economy ideal: Strategic limits in a fragmenting world

Abstract

This study offers a strategic critique of shared manufacturing (SharedMfg), a concept rooted in the broader sharing economy (SE) and promoted as a mechanism for optimizing industrial capacity through peer-to-peer coordination. While such frameworks emphasize digital platforms, scheduling efficiency, and resource pooling, they frequently neglect the deeper constraints that govern the real-world feasibility of manufacturing. In particular, SharedMfg models are often constructed atop idealized abstractions, treating manufacturing units as modular, cyber-physical assets within an Industry 4.0 ecosystem, while overlooking the material, energetic, and geopolitical foundations on which all manufacturing ultimately depends. Extending beyond critique, we explore the conceptual underpinnings of SharedMfg within its systemic context, a prelude to the layered pyramid model advanced in this study. This paper argues that manufacturing does not evolve autonomously, but rather reflects the socio-political order in which it is embedded. To address this oversight, we propose a layered conceptual framework – a manufacturing transformation pyramid – that begins not with coordination, but with the substrate: matter, energy, and institutional structure. We contend that genuine transformation in manufacturing systems must be grounded in these foundational realities, rather than in digital optimization alone. Absent this grounding, SharedMfg/SE risks becoming a transient theoretical exercise, bounded by the specific conditions of its historical moment and detached from the structural realities that shape industrial capacity.