Challenges and Benefits of Sustainable Industry 4.0 for Operations and Supply Chain Management—A Framework Headed toward the 2030 Agenda

Rodrigo Goyannes Gusmão Caiado, Luiz Felipe Scavarda, Bruno Duarte Azevedo, Daniel Luiz de Mattos Nascimento and Osvaldo Luiz Gonçalves Quelhas
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Rodrigo Goyannes Gusmão Caiado: Industrial Engineering Department, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Rio de Janeiro 22541-041, Brazil
Luiz Felipe Scavarda: Industrial Engineering Department, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Rio de Janeiro 22541-041, Brazil
Bruno Duarte Azevedo: Industrial Engineering Department, Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (PUC-Rio), Rio de Janeiro 22541-041, Brazil
Daniel Luiz de Mattos Nascimento: Business Organisation, Marketing and Sociology Department, University of Jaén, 23700 Linares, Spain
Osvaldo Luiz Gonçalves Quelhas: Sustainable Management Systems Department, Federal Fluminense University, Niterói 24210-240, Brazil

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 2, 1-26

Abstract: Currently, Industry 4.0 (I4.0) represents a worldwide movement to improve the productivity and efficiency of operations and supply chain management (OSCM), which requires rethinking and changing the mindset of the way in which products are manufactured and services are used. Although the concept of I4.0 was not popularised in the ratification of the 2030 Agenda, I4.0 is a watershed in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It can serve as a platform for the alignment of the SDGs with the ongoing digital transformation. However, the challenges to the integration of I4.0 and sustainability in OSCM, and the benefits of this integration, in line with the SDGs, remain unclear. Moreover, there is a lack of a standard structure that establishes links between these challenges and benefits to strategically guide organisations on the journey towards a sustainable OSCM 4.0 (S-OSCM4.0) aligned with the SDGs. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to propose an S-OSCM4.0 framework for organisations to attain sustainability and I4.0 in OSCM, in line with the 2030 Agenda. Based on a systematic literature review, 48 articles that complied with the selection criteria were analysed using content analysis. The research findings were synthesised into taxonomies of challenges and benefits, and these categories were linked into a step-by-step framework, following an inductive approach. The proposed framework represents a novel artefact that integrates taxonomies in order to holistically achieve sustainable digitalisation for people, prosperity and planet benefits, and sheds light on the potential contributions of S-OSCM4.0 to the SDGs.

Keywords: sustainable digitalisation; sustainable development goals; people; planet and prosperity; operations and supply chain management (OSCM); taxonomy development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

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