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Abstract
This study proposes a decision framework based on industry 4.0 initiatives within circular economy implementation to evaluate and select sustainable suppliers. In this context, sustainable supplier selection, industry 4.0, and circular economy have emerged as key topics of the contemporary operations management debate. The mix method approach of combining literature review and industrial expert’s inputs was adopted to identify four main categories and twenty-one sub-categories relevant to the supplier selection decision. A multi-criteria decision-making support tool composed of the ‘best-worst method’ (BWM) and VIKOR (VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje) was applied to aid in the evaluation and selection of a sustainable supplier in Pakistan’s textile manufacturing company. The BWM approach was first applied to determine the relative importance weights, and then, VIKOR used to rank the suppliers. The findings of the study suggest that, the Pakistan’s textile manufacturing company places much emphasis and importance on ‘Technological and Infrastructure (TI)’ with weight of 0.356 and ‘a positive organizational culture towards implementation of industry 4.0 and circular economy initiatives’ (OG3) with global weight of 0.139 when embarking on such decisions, and ranked supplier 2 as the top sustainable supplier. Managerial and post-selection benchmarking negotiations and future research directions are also introduced.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Simonov Kusi-Sarpong
Simonov Kusi-Sarpong is the Director of Operations and Research at Eco-Engineering and Management Consult Limited, Ghana and also a Senior Lecturer in Operations Management at Southampton Business School, University of Southampton, UK. He received the PhD in Management Science and Engineering from Dalian University of Technology, China. Simonov’s research focuses on emerging and developing economies and investigates how green and sustainable initiatives such as lean operations, sustainable supply chains, sustainable risk analysis, circular economy, Industry 4.0, blockchain, reverse logistics and their synergies could be used to achieve sustainable operational excellence and supply chain performance. He has published in journals such as the International Journal of Production Economics; International Journal of Production Research; Journal of Cleaner Production; Resources Conservation and Recycling among others. Simonov is a reviewer for many reputable journals and currently an Editorial Board Member for the Journal Resources Conservation and Recycling. Simonov Kusi-Sarpong is the corresponding author and can be contacted at: [email protected].
Himanshu Gupta
Himanshu Gupta is an Assistant Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management at Indian Institute of Technology (Indian School of Mines) Dhanbad, India. He received his Ph.D. in Operations Management from Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, India. His research interest includes sustainability, green supply chain management, green innovation, transport management. He has published various papers in international journals of repute like Journal of Cleaner Production, International Journal of Production Research, Journal of Air Transport Management, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Journal of Logistics, Sustainable Cities and Societies, Environmental Science and Pollution Research, Benchmarking: An International Journal, International Journal of Technology, Policy and Management, International Journal of Productivity and Quality Management.
Sharfuddin Ahmed Khan
Sharfuddin Ahmed Khan is an Assistant Professor in Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management department at University of Sharjah, UAE since September, 2019. Prior to that he was lecturer in same department from September 2009 till August 2019. He holds dual PhD in Engineering (Engineering Management) from University of Quebec, Ecole de Technologie Superieure (ÉTS), Montreal, Canada and University of Sharjah in 2018 and MSc in Industrial and Systems Engineering from National University of Singapore (NUS) Singapore in 2006. He has five years of industrial experience in the field of supply chain management, warehouse management and inventory management at BASF Chemicals, and ExxonMobil. His research interest includes but not limited to Supply Chain Management, Sustainable Supply Chain Management, Performance Measurement & Improvement and Multi-Criteria Decision Making.
Charbel Jose Chiappetta Jabbour
Charbel Jose Chiappetta Jabbour is a Professor of Sustainable Management, at Emlyon Business School, Ecully, France. He is an affiliated Global Professor at the University of Lincoln, UK. He was also a Full Professor at Montpellier Business School, France. Former Co-Director of the University of Stirling MSc in Strategic Sustainable Business, Scotland, UK. Associate Editor of Journal of Cleaner Production (Elsevier) and area editor of Sustainable Production and Consumption journal (Elsevier). He successfully conducted dozens of fully-funded research projects and has supervised an expressive number of PhD students as principal supervisor. He has worked for or visited a number of leading international higher education institutions in Latin America, Asia, and Europe. His research interests are: sustainability management – particularly: sustainable supply chains, the human side of sustainable management, low carbon economy, and strategic sustainable business.
Syed Tahaur Rehman
Syed Tahaur Rehman is a Master’s student at Technical University of Munich, School of Management, Munich, Germany. He is an Industrial & Manufacturing engineering graduate from NED University of Engineering & Technology, Karachi, Pakistan. He worked as an Independent Entrepreneur before joining a corporate company in Karachi, Pakistan. His research interests include supply chain management and operations, product and business development & strategic entrepreneurship and decision-making. He has published in journals such as the Journal of Modelling in Management, Journal of Cleaner Production, Management Decision among others.
Horsten Kusi-Sarpong
Horsten Kusi-Sarpong works as a consultant – procurement and supply chains at Eco-Engineering and Management Consult Limited, Ghana with a long history of industrial experience. He is working towards starting his master degree in supply chain management with concentration in sustainability. His current research interests include procurement management, sustainable procurement, and sustainable supply chains. He has published in journals such as the Journal of Cleaner Production, Operations Management Research, Management Decision among others.