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Industry 4.0 in the Context of Fostering Sustainable Manufacturing and Circular Economy

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Economic and Business Aspects of Sustainability".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2023) | Viewed by 4598

Special Issue Editors

School of Business, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia
Interests: modelling and simulation of real-world scenarios within broader areas of supply chain management and logistics, energy management in protected cropping for sustainable food production; multi-criteria decision making applications in logistics, industry 4.0 readiness assessment and case studies
School of Business, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia
Interests: transfer of technology; technology policy; Industry 4.0 readiness assessment and implementation; circular economy and role of Industry 4.0 in promoting a circular economy; supply chain management with a focus on circular supply chains
School of Business, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia
Interests: environmental management; knowledge management; global enterprise transition; green business transformation; carbon footprints labelling; life cycle assessment; smart tourism; big data strategies

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Industry 4.0 is popularly referred to as the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” that will have a major impact on manufacturing value-chains at both local and global levels, not just in industrially advanced high-cost nations but also in less industrialized low-cost nations (Schwab, 2016). Industry 4.0 holds considerable promise for sustainable industrial value creation. While it is still regarded as a manufacturing paradigm that is still new, the emerging literature based on recent developments in the field suggests that it is possible to postulate likely impacts that Industry 4.0 can have from a circular economy perspective even without explicitly incorporating CE considerations into Industry 4.0 actions, projects, and programmes (Ramanathan, 2020). At the heart of manufacturing in Industry 4.0 will be the “Smart Factory” where there is vertical integration of smart production systems, horizontal integration of value chain systems, and ‘end-to-end’ or through engineering across the entire value chain (Stock and Seliger, 2016; Mohr and Khan, 2015).

Stock and Seliger (2016) and Kolberg and Zühlke (2015) visualize the smart factory as consisting of CPPS where the manufacturing equipment use sensor systems to identify and localize value creation entities such as other machines, products being made, and people. Based on the monitored ‘smart data’, the actuators in the equipment respond in real time to changes, the exchange of smart data between the value creation entities and the value chain is executed through the cloud. From sustainable manufacturing and a circular economy context, value creation modules in a smart factory offer the potential of the sustainable use of resources such as materials, products, energy, and water. Furthermore, recent studies (Bag et al. 2021; Fatorachian and Kazemi, 2021; and Kazancoglu, 2021) show that Industry 4.0 can effectively promote end-of-life strategies thereby creating more environmental and economic value since the materials used can circulate longer within the supply chain, thereby improving the resource consumption rate, fostering sustainability, and enhancing the dynamic remanufacturing capability of the firm. In this context, the role that Industry 4.0 can play in accelerating the transitioning of traditional supply chains to a ‘circular supply chain’ would be of value.

Despite the literature on broader topics of Industry 4.0, sustainable manufacturing and circular economy are gaining momentum, particularly several studies on Industry 4.0 readiness/maturity models and the close connection between Industry 4.0 and circular economy, their connection and association from the perspective of priorities and relationships of key factors across all three areas are in the infancy stage. Furthermore, implementation methodologies and frameworks for supporting Industry 4.0 adoption taking into consideration of sustainable manufacturing and circular economy are lacking in the literature. From these perspectives, there is a need to investigate these three closely connected areas, particularly to (i) identify priorities and relationships among factors (enablers and challenges), (ii) develop/propose implementation methodologies and frameworks for Industry 4.0 adoption, supported through readiness/maturity models and (iii) investigate critical success factors, emphasising the perspective of resilience and capabilities at firm and supply chain level.

This SI focuses on empirical approaches (quantitative, qualitative, or mixed-methods), but papers presenting frameworks, new theory, secondary/archival data also are welcome when integrated with an empirical approach. The research topics should be related to the intersection of three closely related areas: Industry 4.0, sustainable manufacturing and circular economy, covering a wide range of methods, including qualitative comparative analyses of multiple cases, various quantitative methods, empirical analysis of methodologies/frameworks, etc. Contributions are welcome in the following topics, but are not limited to:

  • Barriers and enablers of sustainable manufacturing using Industry 4.0 adoption in the circular economy;
  • Integrated frameworks of implementation of Industry 4.0 and assessment/maturity models;
  • The role of Industry 4.0 in fostering circular supply chains and strategies for circular supply chain transformation;
  • Digitalization of the supply chain for promoting the implementation of circular supply chains;
  • Comparative studies of Industry 4.0 adoption for sustainable manufacturing and fostering a circular economy;
  • Frameworks and models for assessing the contribution of Industry 4.0 applications towards circularity;
  • Managing the transfer of Industry 4.0 technologies for enhancing the sustainability of manufacturing;
  • Upgrading skills and fostering a corporate culture for the effective implementation of Industry 4.0 in the context of a circular economy;
  • Best practices of Industry 4.0 adoption at firm and supply chain levels.

References

Bag, S, Wood, L.C., Telukdarie, A, & Venkatesh, V.G. (2021). ‘Application of Industry 4.0 tools to empower circular economy and achieving sustainability in supply chain operations’, Production Planning & Control, DOI: 10.1080/09537287.2021.1980902.

Fatorachian, H. and Kazemi, H. (2021). ‘Impact of Industry 4.0 on Supply Chain Performance’, Production Planning & Control, vol. 32, no. 1. pp. 63-81

Kazancoglu, Y., Deniz Ozkan-Ozen, Y.D., Sagnak, M., Kazancoglu, I. and Dora, M. (2021). ‘Framework for a Sustainable Supply Chain to Overcome Risks in Transition to a Circular Economy through Industry 4.0’, Production Planning & Control, DOI: 10.1080/09537287.2021.1980910

Kolberg, D. and D. Zühlke (2015), ‘Lean Automation Enabled by Industry 4.0 Technologies’, IFAC-PapersOnLine, 48(3), pp.1870–75.

Mohr, S. and Khan, O. (2015), “3D Printing and its Disruptive Impacts on Supply Chains of the Future”, Technology Innovation Management Review, Vol. 5 No. 11, pp.20-25.

Ramanathan, K. (2020), “Measuring Industry 4.0 Readiness for a Circular Economy”, in Anbumozhi, V., Ramanathan, K., & Wyes, H. (Ed.s), Assessing the Readiness for Industry 4.0 and the Circular Economy, The Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), Jakarta, pp. 56-107.

Schwab, K. (2016), The Fourth Industrial Revolution. Geneva: World Economic Forum.

Stock, T. and Seliger, G. (2016), “Opportunities of Sustainable Manufacturing in Industry 4.0”, Procedia CIRP, Vol. 40, pp.536–541.

Dr. Premaratne Samaranayake
Dr. Rama K. Ramanathan
Prof. Yi-Chen Lan
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Industry 4.0 readiness/maturity
  • Industry 4.0 adoption
  • enablers and challenges, frameworks
  • sustainable manufacturing
  • circular economy

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

19 pages, 753 KiB  
Article
Sustainable Technology Strategies for Transportation and Logistics Challenges: An Implementation Feasibility Study
by Muhammad Saleem Sumbal, Waqas Ahmed, Huzeifa Shahzeb and Felix Chan
Sustainability 2023, 15(21), 15224; https://doi.org/10.3390/su152115224 - 24 Oct 2023
Viewed by 2207
Abstract
Transportation and logistics are the basic building blocks in the socio-economic development of a country. The pandemic altered the landscape of the transportation and logistics sector where organizations had to look for new technology-based solutions. Block chain and digital trucking are emerging concepts, [...] Read more.
Transportation and logistics are the basic building blocks in the socio-economic development of a country. The pandemic altered the landscape of the transportation and logistics sector where organizations had to look for new technology-based solutions. Block chain and digital trucking are emerging concepts, which were further accelerated by COVID-19, to manage the challenges in the transportation and supply chain industry. This study, therefore, investigates the challenges faced by the transportation industry during and post COVID-19 and, consequently, identifies relevant sustainable strategies to combat these challenges in a developing-economies context. Data were collected through interviews from 20 key personnel working in managerial positions in the transportation industry of Pakistan, a developing economy. The findings of this study indicate that the challenges faced by the transportation industry are reduced import–export, local market orders and revenues, supply limited to a few edible items, increase in e-commerce, new entrants in the market and operational issues, such as lack of standard operating procedures (SOPs), performance management and training of drivers. These challenges were more pronounced in the COVID-19 era; however, they are still impacting the industry. Thus, in the post-COVID-19 era, transportation companies need to opt for efficient strategies, such as contactless deliveries, expansion in e-commerce, tech-based performance management of drivers and digital trucking for sustainability, in a developing economy’s transportation and logistics sector. Full article
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21 pages, 2183 KiB  
Article
Reducing the Negative Environmental Impact of Consumerization of IT: An Individual-Level Approach
by Ayodhya Wathuge and Darshana Sedera
Sustainability 2023, 15(16), 12160; https://doi.org/10.3390/su151612160 - 09 Aug 2023
Viewed by 910
Abstract
The internet plays a pivotal role in Industry 4.0, where it provides the underlying infrastructure to support the substantial growth of digital platforms and systems to deliver a wealth of benefits. However, with the unprecedented growth of internet-based applications in recent history, the [...] Read more.
The internet plays a pivotal role in Industry 4.0, where it provides the underlying infrastructure to support the substantial growth of digital platforms and systems to deliver a wealth of benefits. However, with the unprecedented growth of internet-based applications in recent history, the internet itself is harming the environment. Focusing on individual green motivation and willingness to pay for the green internet, this study explores one’s willingness to reduce internet usage. The study employs a survey experiment that involves 376 respondents. The results show that the most effective strategy to reduce internet usage is to incorporate extrinsic strategies and allow individuals to pay a premium for green internet services. Our work contributes to the Industry 4.0 literature by exploring how the negative environmental effects of consumerization of IT can be minimized. The findings of the study are important for technology-based businesses, policy-makers and individuals seeking to reduce the environmental damage of the internet. Full article
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