Abstract
The Internet of Things (IoT) and its benefits and challenges are the most emergent research topics among academics and practitioners. With supply chains (SCs) gaining rapid complexity, having high supply chain visibility (SCV) would help companies ease the processes and reduce complexity by improving inaccuracies. Extant literature has given attention to the organisation’s capability to collect and evaluate information to balance between strategy and goals. The majority of studies focus on investigating IoT’s impact on different areas such as sustainability, organisational structure, lean manufacturing, product development, and strategic management. However, research investigating the relationships and impact of IoT on SCV is minimal. This study closes this gap using a structured literature review to critically analyse existing literature to synthesise the use of IoT applications in SCs to gain visibility, and the SC. We found key IoT technologies that help SCs gain visibility, and seven benefits and three key challenges of these technologies. We also found the concept of Supply 4.0 that grasps the element of Industry 4.0 within the SC context. This paper contributes by combining IoT application synthesis, enablers, and challenges in SCV by highlighting key IoT technologies used in the SCs to gain visibility. Finally, the authors propose an empirical research agenda to address the identified gaps.
Highlights
The Internet of Things (IoT), considered recent development of information and digital technologies, has provided immense business opportunities in industry, manufacturing, and service provision, restructuring the entire supply chains [1,2]
Three significant areas could be found from the content analysis results, and these include the use of IoT, supplier integration, and strategic value
4.0 was introduced to highlight the relationship between Industry 4.0 and the supply chain [5]
Summary
The Internet of Things (IoT), considered recent development of information and digital technologies, has provided immense business opportunities in industry, manufacturing, and service provision, restructuring the entire supply chains [1,2]. With the introduction of Industry 4.0 within manufacturing and production environments, the supply chains (SCs) have encountered digitisation and a massive impact in the form of alliance between suppliers, manufacturers, and customers to enable transparency through the product lifecycle [3,4]. This digitisation of SCs, often termed Supply 4.0, enables companies to have an effective and efficient integration between personnel, processes, equipment, and products [5], providing efficiency, flexibility, and visibility [6,7]. The observations of Büyüközkan and Göçer [8] and Ellis et al [9] conceptualise visibility to the degree of information sharing and SC nodes’ access to generate mutual benefits.
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