Supply Chain Management 4.0: Looking Backward, Looking Forward

Abstract

About ten years ago, a bold vision with a prospect of largely autonomous factories of the future with digitized processes, data-driven smart applications, and seamlessly integrated supply chains was born and quickly became known as Industry 4.0 or aka the 4th Industrial Revolution. A true game-changer, Industry 4.0 has revolutionized the possibilities of advanced manufacturing across the manufacturing sector at large. However, the advancement of supply chains and supply chain management that are essential elements of the wider production engineering process has not yet reached the same level of maturity. The purpose of this paper is to review the state-of-art of supply chain management within the context of Industry 4, from both an academic and industry perspective. The authors will discuss the key elements of typical supply chains in terms of what has already been achieved and identify important research challenges to be addressed over the course of the next 5-10 years. The content obtained was done through a combination of a supply chain management workshop at the University of Liverpool in 2020 and an extensive literature review. The unique contribution of this work is finding how each identified supply chain management element e.g., procurement has progressed within the context of I4 in both academia and industry, focusing on State-of-Art and future challenges.