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

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 water-shed 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.