Industry 4.0, Lean Manufacturing and Circular Economy: a novel pathway for Circular Supply Chain Management and Sustainable Production

The integrated approach constituted by Industry 4.0, Lean Manufacturing and Circular Economy is a novel pathway – where technological, economic, social and environmental perspectives are simultaneously taken into consideration – to pursue the circularity through the support of Reverse Logistics and achieve circular and sustainable production processes. In an interconnected world, emerging technologies such as cloud manufacturing, cyber-physical systems, cloud computing, wearable and human-machine interface, internet of things, industrial integration, big data, blockchain, robotics, advanced automation, additive manufacturing (a.k.a., 3D printing), artificial intelligence, digital twins guide the transition to a digitalised era and are recognised as enabling factors for improving the quality and efficiency of production processes. Thus, these digital tools connected to Lean methodologies, Reverse Logistics, Circular Economy and Supply Chain Management make this management approach a strategic business model for policymakers, entrepreneurs, managers in order to collect and analyse data concerning process performance of productive flows and achieve the aim of sustainable and resilient production. The following Thesis investigated the contribution of Industry 4.0 technologies, Lean Manufacturing, Reverse Logistics and Circular Economy in the Supply Chain Management in the manufacturing sector to improve the decision-making processes and gain sustainability and circularity within the economic, environmental, social and technological perspectives. The research objectives of the Thesis concern (1) the investigation of the relationships among Industry 4.0, Lean Manufacturing, Reverse Logistics, Sustainability and Sustainable Production; (2) the potential synergies between technological and organizational innovations in the industrial sector, also in the light of the new challenges of the Circular Economy paradigm to holistically propose a production process model in a circular economy-oriented perspective at micro level, also compliant with the goals of the UN Agenda 2030 (United Nations, 2015). In order to achieve these research objectives, the study was based on an extensive literature review upon Industry 4.0, Lean Manufacturing and Sustainability and their interrelations and, on a detailed cross-sectional analysis on Industry 4.0, Lean Manufacturing and Circular Economy to better clarify these relationships in order to represent Sustainable and Circular Supply Chain as a product of the simultaneous engagement of lean strategies and emerging technologies through reverse logistics. One of the most interesting insights that emerge from this novel management approach is that this innovative perspective overcomes some of the limitations identified in the traditional view based on Lean Manufacturing methodologies, integrating it with the principles of Supply Chain Management and environmental issues. The results confirm that adopting Lean Manufacturing and Industry 4.0 technologies to achieve sustainable production requires a throughout economic, environmental and social assessment, applied to the whole supply chain. Therefore, taking these aspects into consideration in the planning, monitoring and evaluation phases of industrial processes, they can lead to the implementation of a novel strategic business model for the development of Circular Supply Chain Management.