Analysis of interaction between the barriers for the implementation of sustainable supply chain management

The integration of sustainable development concepts with the traditional supply chain improves the environmental performance and green image among its stakeholders. During adoption of sustainability concepts in traditional supply chain management, some hurdles can be anticipated. These hurdles are called barriers, and industries must equip themselves to remove them. The difficulties associated with removal of barriers are identification and analysis for selection significant barriers. In this chapter, the significant barriers for incorporating sustainability in supply chain of high volume manufacturing are consolidated from the literature and categorized into seven groups: people, strategic, environmental, economic, societal, regulatory, and functional. The widely used evaluation methods are interpretive structural modeling and DEMATEL for which the procedure and guidance to infer the results are detailed. The chapter is expected to support the practicing engineers involved in implementation of sustainable concepts in supply chain.

Sustainable construction and supply chain management (SCM) have, in recent years, become two of the most important performance-related issues within the construction industry. To achieve corporate sustainability within any organisation, it is essential that sustainability issues are addressed throughout the organisation's whole supply chain, a process referred to as sustainable supply chain management (SSCM). The implementation of SCM and sustainability is, however, an extremely complex undertaking. Through an extensive literature review and detailed interviews, this research has identified the conditions and strategies for achieving SSCM within construction organisations. The research also investigated the meaning, barriers and enablers, issues, tools and techniques for achieving successful SCM and SSCM. The study was based on the perspectives of senior managers of exemplar organisations with a proven track record in sustainability and SCM. It has been possible to identify best practice from which other organisations can learn, thus supporting the industry in the move towards more sustainable construction practices.

Understanding different aspects of sustainability, supply chain management (SCM), and decision making policies and relating them to performance measurement have been increasingly investigated in the last decade. In contrast to traditional SCM, which typically focuses on economic and financial business performance, sustainable SCM (SSCM) is characterized by explicit integration of environmental or social objectives which extend the economic dimension. For evaluating the sustainability of SCM as well as its greenness, we have to consider many and different index and criteria. One of the best tools for assessing the SSCM and GSCM is multicriteria decision making (MCDM) techniques. Many studies have been conducted in this area. Moreover, there are many uncertainty factors which may reduce the accuracy of MCDM result. Actually, Uncertainty is always a worsening factor in any decision support models, and dilutes the planned objectives of such models. For decreasing this uncertainty, fuzzy logic has been combined with MCDM approach. In fact, the main purpose of this chapter is considering the recent studies in area of SSCM and GSCM regarding to applications of fuzzy MCDM techniques. At the end of this chapter, based on out investigations in applications of fuzzy MCDM in SSCM and GSCM and regarding to research gaps, some suggestions for future studies have been proposed.

In recent years, environmental sustainability has stimulated enterprises worldwide to not only develop green and sustainable innovations but also to move toward green and sustainable supply chain management. This study integrated the ideas of green supply chain management (GSCM) and sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) to define sustainable green supply chain management (SGSCM). Previous studies on GSCM/SSCM have contributed to research and practice, but few have explored the antecedents and consequences of GSCM/SSCM simultaneously. To address this research gap, we linked ecological modernization (EM) theory with SGSCM and sustainability performance to build a comprehensive research model. A total of 300 valid questionnaires were collected from electrical and electronics firms in Taiwan. The empirical results demonstrated that awareness of and pressure to engage in EM significantly positively affected SGSCM. Moreover, SGSCM significantly positively influenced sustainability performance (i.e. environmental, economic, and social performance). These findings should convince enterprises to actively promote SGSCM.

On the basis of a content analysis, this paper explores the evolution of best practices from the traditional approach to cost efficiency in supply chain management towards the current context of sustainability. In this sense, the paper shows a comprehensive review of the best practices that supply managers will need to engage in to create a sustainable supply chain. Our analysis suggests that the practices that lead to a more sustainable supply chain management are in equal parts best practices in traditional supply chain management or slight modifications of existing practices, and innovative practices.KeywordsBest practicesLiterature reviewLogisticsSustainable supply chain management (SSCM)

The U.S. healthcare sector’s supply chain operations are responsible for about 8.5% of all national greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In healthcare, traditional supply chain management has focused on cost efficiency to the detriment of environmental considerations leading to higher emissions, waste, and resource depletion. The focus of this study is to investigate strategies for making sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) in the U.S. healthcare system, while reducing environmental impact at minimal cost to patient care quality. The objectives of the study are to evaluate the current state of healthcare supply chains, explore sustainable practices, evaluate emerging technologies, propose an SSCM implementation framework, and explore policy implications. Sustainable supply chain management can be achieved by forming the key strategies: comprehensive waste reduction and recycling programs, adoption of energy efficient transportation and storage solutions, green energy sourcing, and use of data driven inventory management that would help optimize inventory, along with other technologies like blockchain, IoT and artificial intelligence that could achieve transparency and efficiency. The research wouldn't go into specific case studies but would likely look at institutions that have already been able to implement these practices. The findings indicate that considerable environmental footprint reduction of the U.S. healthcare sector is possible without sacrificing access to high quality care through adoption of SSCM practices. But it requires joint efforts from policymakers, healthcare providers and industry partners. The long-term goal is a sustainable, resilient healthcare system that will integrate environmental stewardship with high quality care, that will help mitigate climate change and acknowledge the interdependence of environmental and human health.

Analysis of enablers for implementation of sustainable supply chain management – A textile case

Purpose This paper seeks to contribute to the understanding of the impact of Sustainable Supply Chain Management (SSCM) practices on sustainable performance and the further impact of sustainable performance on food safety assurance in Chinese food firms. The paper also aims to provide a new way to avoid the occurrence of food safety problems from the perspective of SSCM and so help food firms to achieve sustainable development. Design/methodology/approach This paper developed a conceptual model to investigate the impact of food firms SSCM practices on the firm performances while firm performances on food safety assurance. The primary data were collected from 162 Chinese food firms. The research models were tested using structural equation modeling on PLS smart 3.0. Findings The results show that SSCM practices have a positive impact on firm environmental performance and social performances. The environmental and social performance positively related to financial performance. Moreover, the sustainable performance positively affects the food safety assurance. Research limitations/implications Our results suggest that SSCM practices have a positive impact on a firm’s environmental and social performance, which in turn improves financial performance. Moreover, sustainable performance positively affects food safety assurance. Originality/value An SSCM practices model is proposed to empirically evaluate Chinese food firms. The results of this investigation support the hypotheses that SSCM practices are environmentally and socially friendly and are good to business, and the food safety assurance can be promoted by a food firm’s sustainability performance. We carried out a survey and research of SSCM in food industry and gave insights to food safety management.

Prior studies in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) fail to address collaboration in the supply chain and lean management in conjunction with economic benefits. Collaboration in the supply chain and lean management have to integrate into SSCM, which involves social, economic and environmental aspects. This study aims to establish a framework to understand the seafood industry in Vietnam and to enhance its performance. This framework proposes 5 aspects and 21 criteria, and these aspects involve qualitative information. Fuzzy set theory is applied to deal with the complexity of and uncertainty in the linguistic preferences. The fuzzy Delphi method is employed to test the reliability and validity attributes. A decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory is to assess the interrelationships among the attributes. Sensitivity analysis is adopted to address subjective robustness and objective perceptions. The results show that the aspects of collaboration in the supply chain and lean management drive economic benefits.

PurposeSustainability has been on the executive agenda for years and it is now one of the fastest growing supply chain management trends. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the barriers for the adoption and implementation of the sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) concept.Design/methodology/approachThis study has been divided into two phases such as identification of barriers and qualitative analysis. First, to identify the most influential barriers, the authors offer a systematic literature review, taking 188 papers published from 2010 to November 2016 into account. The investigation phase led to the selection of 15 barriers based on the literature in consultation with industrial experts and academicians. Second, the interpretive structural modeling qualitative analysis was used to find out the mutual influences between the 15 barriers by a survey.FindingsFurther, the authors propose and illustrate the cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification analysis to test a framework that extrapolates SSCM barriers and their relationships. “Inadequate information technology implementation” has been identified as the most important barrier that may force organizations to implement SSCM practices to ensure their business sustainability.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors presented some limitations in their research in some fields which could allow new researchers and practitioners to conduct the future research to grow in different dimensions.Practical implicationsPractitioners or policymakers usually are not familiar with these types of research works; that is why most of these surveys remain theoretical and conceptual. Future investigation needs to be done in practical application domain instead of merely giving opinions.Originality/valueBased on the authors’ research, the researchers have more attention to work in conceptual analysis due to other fields, but the authors believe that even with the implementation of SSCM, many remarkable areas still exist for future research which could help in development. The authors also provide more details in this paper.

Data has evolved into one of the principal resources for contemporary businesses. Moreover, corporations have undergone digitalization; consequently, their supply chains generate substantial amounts of data. The theoretical framework of this investigation was built on novel concepts like big data analytics—artificial intelligence (BDA-AI) and supply chain ambidexterity’s (SCA) direct impacts on sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) and indirect impacts on sustainable innovation ambidexterity (SIA) and environmental performance (EP). This study selected employees of manufacturing industries as respondents for environmental performance, sustainable supply chain management, big data analytics, artificial intelligence, and supply chain ambidexterity. The results from this study show that BDA-AI and SCA significantly affect SSCM. SSCM has significant associations with SIA and EP. Finally, SIA has a significant impact on EP. According to the results indicating the indirect impacts, BDA-AI has significant indirect relationships with SIA and EP by having SSCM as the mediating variable. Furthermore, SCA has significant indirect associations with SIA and EP, with SSCM as the mediating variable. Additionally, both BDA-AI and SCA have significant indirect associations with EP, while SIA and SSCM are mediating variables. Finally, SSCM has an indirect association with EP while having SIA as a mediating variable. The findings of this paper provide several theoretical contributions to the research in sustainability and big data analytics artificial intelligence field. Furthermore, based on the suggested framework, this study offers a number of practical implications for decision-makers to improve significantly in the supply chain and BDA-AI. For instance, this paper provides significant insight for logistics and supply chain managers, supporting them in implementing BDA-AI solutions to help SSCM and enhance EP.

Supply chain management (SCM) increasingly needs to address both climate change mitigation and adaptation issues. While mitigation aims at sustainability by reducing the environmental impact of supply chains (SCs), adaptation entails improving resilience by increasing the ability to cope with climate-induced disruptions. Although sustainable SCM (SSCM) and resilient SCM (RSCM) are of increasing importance, there has been little effort to conceptually connect SSCM and RSCM. Our study explores the interconnections between both concepts by outlining theoretical elements and conducting a case study of four companies in the automotive SC based on company documents and interviews. Results show that SSCM is prioritised over RSCM. We furthermore highlight trade-offs and overlaps between the elements of SSCM and RSCM, which can be valuable for decision-makers, and introduce two enabling factors: transparency and diversity. We present a novel theoretical SCM framework that integrates both resilience and sustainability perspectives and make propositions for future research.

This paper discusses the antecedences and consequences of supply chain transparency (SCT) in sustainable agrarian supply chain management using partial least squares regression in an empirical sample with 131 supply chains with lead firms in German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria and Switzerland). We investigated the effect of such structural antecedences as disintermediation, as well as the effect of governance tools similar to intensive communication, the integration of third parties in supply chain governance or the use of formal specifications on SCT. We found that all these antecedences are helpful in increasing SCT, while low developed countries of origin significantly reduced SCT. Then, the effects of SCT on the four main performance dimensions in sustainable supply chain management (SSCM), i.e. social, ecological, and operational performance and long-term relationship success, were verified. Higher SCT improves all four dimensions significantly, while the effect on operational performance is lowest. Supply chain transparency turns out to be a prerequisite or a basic indicator of good management in SSCM in agri-food supply chains.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to give an up-to-date and structured insight into the literature published during the past decade on sustainable green supply chain management. It also suggests trends for future research based on the research issues identified through systematic and comprehensive analysis of previous studies in the area of green and sustainable supply chain management.Design/methodology/approachA state-of-the-art literature review is carried out by systematically collecting the existing literature over a period of 10 years (2005-2014) and categorizing it on the basis of attributes such as stages in supply chain, methodology and the industries/sectors under consideration. The classification of literature is also done according to the geographic region and year of publication.FindingsThere has been an increased interest among researchers and practitioners in the area of sustainable green supply chain management in the past decade. A need for achieving sustainability through adoption of greener practices has been universally felt, owing to an increasing environmental and ecological complexity. The review reveals that there exists a need to address behavioural issues like human resource management and supply chain partner relationship management. Moreover, reverse logistics, closed-loop supply chain management and waste management are areas that need special focus to achieve environmental sustainability.Research limitations/implicationsThe current review focuses on research trends in the past 10 years only. Moreover, papers from only good quality, peer-reviewed journals are considered in the study.Originality/valueMost of the previous reviews have either focused on specific issues related to sustainable supply chains only or green supply chains. The present study collectively takes into consideration papers both from green supply chain management as well as from sustainable supply chain literature that have a prime focus on environmental sustainability.

Analyzing the SSCM practices in the mining and mineral industry by ISM approach