Developing a Manufacturing Industrial Brain in a Smart City: Analysis of fsQCA Based on Yiwu Knitting Industry Platform

Abstract

This article explores the mechanism for constructing and the path for implementing an industrial brain in the development of smart cities, with a focus on the case of the Yiwu knitting industry platform in China. Accordingly, our study involved a literature review, questionnaire survey, data analysis, qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), and discussion. Our key finding was that the manufacturing brain evolves in three distinct stages: platform creation, growth, and expansion. The mechanisms of implementing these are functional development, trust creation, and value co-creation, respectively. Specifically, functional development marks the commencement of the industrial brain’s construction, which involves enterprise demand analysis, capability bottleneck identification, data value formation, and platform architecture simplification. Trust building serves as the central mechanism of evolving the manufacturing brain, comprising institutional, relational, and computational trust. Lastly, value co-creation proceeds, which is pivotal for a business paradigm revolution, encompassing connection, linkage, and integration. The main theoretical contribution of this article is to propose a normative analytical framework for revealing the mechanism of construction and the path of implementation of industrial platforms in smart city development. Meanwhile, in its practical contribution, this article provides policy guidance, as developed through our analysis of how an industrial platform can promote the transformation and upgrading of the urban manufacturing industry, to realize smart city construction and the economy and society’s coordinated development.