The fourth industrial era, known as ‘Industry 4.0’ (I4.0), aided and abetted by the digital revolution, has attracted increasing attention among scholars and practitioners in the last decade. The adoption of I4.0 principles in Disaster Risk Management (DRM) research and associated industry practices is particularly notable, although its origins, impacts and potential are not well understood. In response to this knowledge gap, this paper conducts a systematic literature review and bibliometric analysis of the application and contribution of I4.0 in DRM. The systematic literature review identified 144 relevant articles and then employed descriptive and content analysis of a focused set of 70 articles published between 2011 and 2021. The results of this review trace the growing trend for adoption of I4.0 tools and techniques in disaster management, and in parallel their influence in resilient infrastructure and digital construction fields. The results are used to identify six dominant clusters of research activity: big data analytics, Internet of Things, prefabrication and modularization, robotics and cyber-physical systems. The research in each cluster is then mapped to the priorities of the Sendai framework for DRR, highlighting the ways it can support this international agenda. Finally, this paper identifies gaps within the literature and discusses possible future research directions for the combination of I4.0 and DRM.

Integration of the lean and resilience paradigms has attracted increasing attention among scientists and practitioners. In an interconnected world, the need to be resilient involves increased readiness to deal with risks from both outside and inside an enterprise, and to be lean involves maximizing value while minimizing waste. The combination of these requirements has been the catalyst for a move towards lean–resilience operations. To better understand this trend, which seeks to help firms retain a competitive position and survive disruptions, this paper provides a systematic literature review of 53 articles identified through the C-I-M-O (context-intervention-mechanism-outcome) framework and examines them using descriptive and content analysis. The results trace the growth of lean–resilience research from its infancy to its current advanced state. This paper also identifies for the first time the lack of structured research on the number and categories of implemented practices and their associated benefits. To address this deficiency, a concept map is developed to provide guidance on the topic, identify gaps and inconsistencies in the literature, understand the state of development and suggest future research directions. The results are used to identify four dominant streams: application, compatibility, integration, and impact assessment in the context of the supply chain, conceptual development and operational research of various organizational and industry sectors. Further topics for investigation are recommended in the form of research questions. The proposed concept map is intended to assist researchers and practitioners to develop knowledge about the integration of lean and resilience paradigms in new contexts and formulate more effective deployment strategies.

Natural hazards can have substantial destructive impacts on the built environment. Providing effective services in disaster areas is heavily reliant on maintaining or replacing infrastructure; thus, post-disaster reconstruction of infrastructure has attracted growing attention. Due to the complex and dynamic nature of infrastructure recovery projects, contractor companies engaged in this work have typically experienced poor performance. Furthermore, from a commercial perspective, the post-disaster reconstruction environment is characterized by fierce competition and market uncertainty, challenging the organizational resilience of companies undertaking this work. One approach for improving contractor performance is the implementation of lean construction, but the literature lacks consensus on its capability to affect organizational resilience. To respond to this problem, a conceptual framework applicable for lean implementation in infrastructure, which explicitly addresses organizational resilience, is required for recovery projects. In parallel, contributing components to effective implementation of lean-recovery and supportive theories for justifying the conceptual framework must be identified. Consequently, this paper proposes a conceptual framework to implement lean practices for the enhancement of organizational resilience. The framework is developed using a systematic research method, wherein 110 research documents were discovered initially, and following processing, 18 relevant documents were identified and analyzed. Through this process, contingency and Transformation-Flow-Value (TFV) theories were identified as an appropriate foundation for a framework to implement lean construction in infrastructure recovery projects.

Based on data envelopment analysis, water efficiency and productivity were measured with the aim of reducing water use in metropolises. Alternative measures of efficiency were evaluated and the productivity was decomposed into several components. The correlation between regional economic indices and water quantities was also analysed. For the case of water use in metropolitan Tehran, an average efficiency of 94% was measured and progress in total productivity was calculated to be 14%. The efficiency scores of other metropolises in Iran were calculated to be about 30–50% less than that of Tehran. Reasonable estimates for the threshold of water use in Tehran were obtained. This paper also presents the issues of the plans for improving water efficiency and productivity and increasing water availability for users. This work identified the significant effects of regional economic indices on water efficiency and productivity calculations in metropolises of Iran.

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