When titans meet – Can industry 4.0 revolutionise the environmentally-sustainable manufacturing wave? The role of critical success factors

Abstract

This work makes the case for integrating two industrial waves that promise to re-shape current patterns of production and consumption: Industry 4.0 and environmentally-sustainable manufacturing. We argue that, although these two trends cannot be considered an industrial revolution, Industry 4.0-associated technologies nevertheless have the unique potential to unlock environmentally-sustainable manufacturing. Productive synergy between Industry 4.0 and environmentally-sustainable manufacturing relies on understanding the role played by eleven critical success factors, which organisations should consider carefully when simultaneously implementing Industry 4.0 and environmentally-sustainable manufacturing. As this is one of the first works to address whether or not Industry 4.0 can synergistically boost environmentally-sustainable manufacturing – with an emphasis on the critical success factors that can pose challenges and opportunities to this process – we also propose an integrative framework containing twelve research propositions. We hope this will stimulate the debate on the intersection of manufacturing waves, in particular the integration of Industry 4.0 and environmentally-sustainable manufacturing. © 2017