One of the most novel concepts that has been applied to companies in recent years is "Industry 4.0". This is a wide term that implies a drastic change in the way companies operate. This paper reviews some of its existing literature in order to give an accurate definition of such a concept. A classification scheme based in two main pillars, on one hand the features which characterize that term and on the other hand the technologies and concepts that support their development is also defined. All results are based on a structured literature review.
In order to enhance the sustainability in the supply chain, its members should define and pursue common objectives in the three dimensions of the sustainability (economic, environmental and social). The Agri-Food Supply Chain (AFSC) is a network of different members such as farmers (producers), processors and distributors (wholesales, retailers…), etc. In order to achieve the performance objectives of the AFSC, Industry 4.0 technologies can be implemented. The aim of this paper is to present a classification of these technologies according to two criteria: objective to be achieved (environmental or social) specified in the main issues to be covered in each objective and member of the AFSC supply chain where it is implemented. In this work, we focus on technologies that deal with environmental and social sustainability because economic sustainability will depend on the specific characteristics of the business (a supply chain using a specific Industry 4.0 technology may be profitable while others do not).
The Agri-food Supply Chain (ASC) has received increasing attention lately due to environmental and social impacts. This is likely to lead to tighter regulations and closer control of these supply chains, where the traditional ASC practices will be reviewed and changed. One of the key solutions may be the necessity of establishing procedures accounting for the sustainability of the whole ASC. This is directly related to the increasing presence of different ASC third parties offering this type of services. In this paper, different aspects about ASC sustainability are reviewed from the literature, with the aim of finding out which are the most addressed and remarkable ones. These ones will be used as a benchmark against an example of a real sustainable ASC management model implemented by the UK established company (LEAF-Linking Environment And Farming).
This work aims to propose a Customer-Oriented Sustainable Balanced ScoreCard (COSBSC) for Agri-food Supply Chains (ASC). Balanced Scorecard (BSC) is one of the most widespread performance measurement systems used. In ASC contexts, the inclusion of sustainability issues (mainly environmental and social) is a relevant issue not only because companies are subject to many public legislation constraints but also because final clients are becoming more concerned about purchasing sustainable products and services and force upstream the ASC to meet certain levels. This fact leads the ASC companies to adopt customer-oriented strategies in which sustainable aspects are of special relevance when managing their businesses more efficiently. For that purpose, in this work a research on BSC models is developed, along with sustainability issues specifically addressed by ASC. Then a proposal of a COSBSC for ASC is presented.
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