Industry 5.0 and the Circular Economy: Utilizing LCA with Intelligent Products

Chris Turner (), John Oyekan, Wolfgang Garn, Cian Duggan and Khaled Abdou
Additional contact information
Chris Turner: Surrey Business School, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, UK
John Oyekan: Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering, University of Sheffield, Portobello Street, Sheffield S1 3JD, UK
Wolfgang Garn: Surrey Business School, University of Surrey, Guildford GU2 7XH, UK
Cian Duggan: Carbon Intelligence, 5th Floor, 103-113 Regent Street, London W1B 4HL, UK
Khaled Abdou: Carbon Intelligence, 5th Floor, 103-113 Regent Street, London W1B 4HL, UK

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 22, 1-21

Abstract: While the move towards Industry 4.0 has motivated a re-evaluation of how a manufacturing organization should operate in light of the availability of a new generation of digital production equipment, the new emphasis is on human worker inclusion to provide decision making activities or physical actions (at decision nodes) within an otherwise automated process flow; termed by some authors as Industry 5.0 and seen as related to the earlier Japanese Society 5.0 concept (seeking to address wider social and environmental problems with the latest developments in digital system, artificial Intelligence and automation solutions). As motivated by the EU the Industry 5.0 paradigm can be seen as a movement to address infrastructural resilience, employee and environmental concerns in industrial settings. This is coupled with a greater awareness of environmental issues, especially those related to Carbon output at production and throughout manufactured products lifecycle. This paper proposes the concept of dynamic Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), enabled by the functionality possible with intelligent products. A particular focus of this paper is that of human in the loop assisted decision making for end-of-life disassembly of products and the role intelligent products can perform in achieving sustainable reuse of components and materials. It is concluded by this research that intelligent products must provide auditable data to support the achievement of net zero carbon and circular economy goals. The role of the human in moving towards net zero production, through the increased understanding and arbitration powers over information and decisions, is paramount; this opportunity is further enabled through the use of intelligent products.

Keywords: intelligent products; smart products; Industry 4.0; Industry 5.0; Society 5.0; circular economy; human centric manufacturing; human in the loop; Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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