Identifying and analyzing the barriers of Internet-of-Things in sustainable supply chain through newly proposed spherical fuzzy geometric mean

Abstract

Many industrial firms have gained strategic benefits from the use of IoT in supply chain (SC) and operations, but still, several firms are reluctant in applying this technology in their firm. Therefore, this study is going to identify and analyze the most influential barriers faced by firms during the adoption of IoT in attaining sustainable SC. The novelty of the current research work is the use of Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) under spherical fuzzy set to assess those identified barriers which are linked with IoT implementation in the context of sustainable SC. Compared to previously developed extension of fuzzy sets such as Intuitionistic and Pythagorean fuzzy sets, Spherical fuzzy set uses three dimensional membership functions capable of handling more uncertainty and ambiguity of preference given by the decision makers. The barriers are analyzed by segregating them into four major categories i.e. economic, organisational, environmental, and technological barriers. In terms of computational complexity the proposed spherical fuzzy AHP is much simpler to the previously developed spherical fuzzy AHP, as it utilizes the newly proposed Spherical Fuzzy Geometric Mean to compute the final score of the barriers. It is found that economic factor is the most influential factor among organizational, environmental and technological barriers. Overall operational cost and financial constraints/insufficient budget are the two most influential factors or major cause which acts as a hurdle in implementing IoT in the context of sustainable SC. The analysis on the crucial barriers in the adoption of IoT in sustainable SC suggest that financial rewards and compensations should be provided to the firms who adopted green material and green devices in IoT technologies.