Development of Framework for Drivers and Barriers in the Implementation of Supply Chain 4.0.

Abstract

Industrie 4.0 (I4.0), now commonly referred to as Industry 4.0 was a paradigm that originated from a 2011 high-tech strategy project by the German government which was to promote the digital revolution or digitalization of manufacturing. Industry 4.0 had been analyzed by many authors in the context of industrial revolutions driven by a cluster of concepts and technologies. Though the potential of Industry 4.0 can be harnessed in its entirety by interconnecting companies, most previous research had been within the boundaries of an industry and/or enterprise. While studies about Industry 4.0 in relation to Supply Chain Management has predominantly covered trends in the manufacturing industry such as smart factories, smart manufacturing and IoT, other sectors and/or industries have embraced the concepts, principles and technologies of Industry 4.0 as an enabler of digitalization. Supply Chain 4.0 is the re-organization of supply chain processes such as design and planning, production, distribution, consumption and reverse logistics using Industry 4.0 technologies. This thesis performs a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of relevant literature to understand previous research conducted about industry 4.0 in supply chains; explored the different concepts, principles and dimensions involved, interpreted them and proposed a conceptual framework. The systematic review covered Supply Chain 4.0 relevant literature from 2015 to 2020 in Scopus database. The bibliometric research method used in the analysis of the Scopus data was Co-word analysis of keywords related to the SC 4.0 using VOSviewer. The context of the thesis is a holistic analysis that cuts across the end-to-end business functions in a supply chain. The key finding is that there are Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Environmental and Legal dimensions to the drivers and barriers in SC 4.0. The result of the SLR is a conceptual framework that addressed the drivers and barriers in the implementation of Supply Chain 4.0. The framework which is designed with PESTEL, a strategic management analysis tool, can be applied in strategic decision-making irrespective of the industry. The list of bibliographic references from the SLR and the conceptual framework can also be utilized in future research.