Barriers for adoption of Industry 4.0 in sustainable food supply chain: a circular economy perspective
International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management
ISSN: 1741-0401
Article publication date: 4 February 2022
Issue publication date: 2 February 2024
Abstract
Purpose
Food supply chains (FSCs) are fast becoming more and more complex. Sustainability is a necessary strategy in FSCs to meet the environmental, economic and societal requirements. Industry 4.0 (I4.0) applications for a circular economy (CE) will play a significant role in sustainable food supply chains (SFSCs). I4.0 applications can be used in for traceability, tracking, inspection and quality monitoring, environmental monitoring, precision agriculture, farm input optimization, process automation, etc. to improve circularity and sustainability of FSCs. However, the factors integrating I4.0 and CE adoption in SFSC are not yet very well understood. Furthermore, despite such high potential I4.0 adoption is also met with several barriers. The present study identifies and analyzes twelve barriers for the adoption of I4.0 in SFSC from an CE context.
Design/methodology/approach
A cause-effect analysis and prominence ranking of the barriers are done using Rough-DEMATEL technique. DEMATEL is a widely used technique that is applied for a structured analysis of a complex problems. The rough variant of DEMATEL helps include the uncertainty and vagueness of decision maker related to the I4.0 technologies.
Findings
“Technological immaturity,” “High investment,” “Lack of awareness and customer acceptance” and “technological limitations and lack of eco-innovation” are identified as the most prominent barriers for adoption of I4.0 in SFSC.
Originality/value
Successful mitigation of these barriers will improve the sustainability of FSCs through accelerated adoption of I4.0 solutions. The findings of the study will help managers, practitioners and planners to understand and successfully mitigate these barriers.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Uttarakhand Science Education and Research Centre (USERC), DehraDun, India, (USERC/2019-20/602) being led by author Prof. Sachin Kumar Mangla. The authors are grateful and acknowledge the assistance of USERC in conducting this research.
Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
Citation
Kumar, A., Mangla, S.K. and Kumar, P. (2024), "Barriers for adoption of Industry 4.0 in sustainable food supply chain: a circular economy perspective", International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, Vol. 73 No. 2, pp. 385-411. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPPM-12-2020-0695
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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