Industry 4.0 as enabler for a sustainable development: A qualitative assessment of its ecological and social potential

How do Partners Benefit from IT Use in Supply-Chain Management: An Empirical Study of Taiwan’s Bicycle Industry

“…In addition, an industry supply chain possessing SCC can prevent itself from immediate competitive imitation and provide the basis of continuous competitive advantage since SCC are developed over time and are deeply plugged in to supply chain procedures [2,35]. These results reveal a strong message to managers for the strategic plan of SCMS to develop industry supply chain capability as a core competency to create competitive advantage.…”

“…From the sustainability supply chain viewpoint, sustainable benefits can be obtained from the use of IT or Industry 4.0 related technologies as information systems integration improvement to enhance the supply chain information transparency and processing capability. Such benefits include: transparency of process, machinery, stock, or logistics data to facilitate traceability of commodity flow to increase resource and energy efficiency; reduction of waste, logistics process and delivery errors and damaged goods; shorter set-up and lead times as well as faster machine speed to facilitate faster and more flexible, efficient, and higher quality response to customer demands; reduction of time-to-market in new product design, thus supporting a firm to effectively and efficiently manage operational contingencies and enhance performance [29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42].…”

“…According to Beier et al [27], and Kiron and Unruh [28], Industry 4.0 is really an enabler of sustainable development, but the convergence of digital transformation and sustainability remains underdeveloped. Recently, a lot of studies have identified several interlinks between Industry 4.0 technologies and sustainable operations, such as: discussing the influence of sustainable business models [29], exploring the potential impact, opportunities and challenges to sustainable development [30][31][32][33][34], enabling of sustainability [35][36][37], potentially contributing sustainable value creation [38], the effects on lean manufacturing practices for sustainable organizations [39,40], and presenting the dependence power of the determinants for Industry 4.0 implication in the sustainability context [41]. According to Vaio and Varriale [42], by adopting a sustainable supply-chain management (SSCM) perspective, firms tend to focus much more on searching for transparent information, coordination, integration, and effective sustainable practices, thus considering Industry 4.0 and its social, environmental, and economic impact.…”

Development of a Smart Cyber-Physical Manufacturing System in the Industry 4.0 Context

“…National strategies for developing smart manufacturing systems are focused on by both developing and developed countries [5,6]. The development of manufacturing not only considers technological innovations but also economic, social and environmental effects [4,7]. In the literature, many novel paradigms known as intelligent manufacturing systems (IMS) [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] have been proposed such as holonic [16], biological [17], reconfigurable [18], and cloud manufacturing systems [19].…”

“…National strategies for developing smart manufacturing systems are focused on by both developing and developed countries [5,6]. The development of manufacturing not only considers technological innovations but also economic, social and environmental effects [4,7]. In the literature, many novel paradigms known as intelligent manufacturing systems (IMS) [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] have been proposed such as holonic [16], biological [17], reconfigurable [18], and cloud manufacturing systems [19].In the manufacturing field, Industry 4.0 is characterized by the autonomous systems with cyber and physical representation [20][21][22] and advance in ICT [23] such as cloud computing [24], internet of things (IoT), internet of service (IoS) [25][26][27][28][29], agent technology [30][31][32][33][34][35], cognitive technology [36,37], big data [38,39], data mining [40,41], and artificial intelligence [42][43][44][45][46][47].…”