TY - JOUR
T1 - The future of industry 4.0 and the circular economy in Chinese supply chain
T2 - In the Era of post-COVID-19 pandemic
AU - Dongfang, Wang
AU - Ponce, Pablo
AU - Yu, Zhang
AU - Ponce, Katerine
AU - Tanveer, Muhammad
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - The demand for new productive factors is increasingly required, exacerbated in a scenario in which a linear economy prevails. The circular economy (CE) adoption is a proposal to guarantee environmental sustainability and redirect an obsolete process such as the linear economy. Thus, one of the main factors that allow achieving sustainability is Industry 4.0 (I4.0). In addition, the research aims to evaluate the role of I4.0 during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. The literature review process defines ten future projections with potential for the CE's adoption. The two-round Delphi approach was developed with 54 CE experts to evaluate the projections. In both rounds, the probability of occurrence up to 2030, its impact on the CE and its desirability were evaluated. Likewise, the qualitative criteria of the experts were coded to evaluate the projections. From the ten projections, four are those with the highest probability of occurrence (EP > 70%), with high impact (I > 3.5) and desirability of occurrence (I > 3.5). Expert evaluations make it possible to identify that Industry 4.0 and the digital skills of workers, their financing, and the efficiency of Government policies have a high probability of occurrence in the adoption of the CE in 2030. This research responds to the special call of papers providing evidence favouring the implementation of I4.0 in the CE from a holistic approach to draw a roadmap towards adopting the CE practices.
AB - The demand for new productive factors is increasingly required, exacerbated in a scenario in which a linear economy prevails. The circular economy (CE) adoption is a proposal to guarantee environmental sustainability and redirect an obsolete process such as the linear economy. Thus, one of the main factors that allow achieving sustainability is Industry 4.0 (I4.0). In addition, the research aims to evaluate the role of I4.0 during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. The literature review process defines ten future projections with potential for the CE's adoption. The two-round Delphi approach was developed with 54 CE experts to evaluate the projections. In both rounds, the probability of occurrence up to 2030, its impact on the CE and its desirability were evaluated. Likewise, the qualitative criteria of the experts were coded to evaluate the projections. From the ten projections, four are those with the highest probability of occurrence (EP > 70%), with high impact (I > 3.5) and desirability of occurrence (I > 3.5). Expert evaluations make it possible to identify that Industry 4.0 and the digital skills of workers, their financing, and the efficiency of Government policies have a high probability of occurrence in the adoption of the CE in 2030. This research responds to the special call of papers providing evidence favouring the implementation of I4.0 in the CE from a holistic approach to draw a roadmap towards adopting the CE practices.
KW - Circular economy
KW - COVID-19
KW - Delphi approach
KW - Environmental policies
KW - Industry 4.0
KW - Supply chain management
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85129879068&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s12063-021-00220-0
DO - 10.1007/s12063-021-00220-0
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85129879068
SN - 1936-9735
VL - 15
SP - 342
EP - 356
JO - Operations Management Research
JF - Operations Management Research
IS - 1-2
ER -