Towards Supply Chain Management 4.0

Abstract

Highlights: A brief review of industrial, logistics, and Supply Chain Management evolution. A concept and the technological elements for Supply Chain Management 4.0 (SCM 4.0) are presented. Potential applications of SCM 4.0 are reviewed as well. Goal: This paper aims at reviewing the historical development of the Supply Chain Management 4.0 concept and to propose an update for it. Design/Methodology/Approach: The exploratory part of the paper started with a bibliometric analysis to identify relevant keywords and publications per year. Secondly, a historical review of the concepts of Supply Chain Management is presented. Additionally, the paper embraced a conceptual approach to propose a new definition of Supply Chain Management 4.0. Lastly, a research outlook and some initiatives to the practical application of the concept are presented. Results: The bibliometric analysis about Supply Chain Management 4.0 reinforce the growing importance of the topic. The main keywords related to the subject indicate that Big Data, cloud computing, and Internet of Things are the most widely explored issues within smart supply chains. Analysis indicate that smart supply chains take advantage of communication and technological advances in order to build an adaptive, efficient, and transparent network. However, the application of such concept requires the development of knowledge, not only in the hardware and software fields, but also in the managerial field, to address the question of how to use that information and communication to benefit stakeholders. Limitations of the investigation: The document reports an exploratory research applied only to the Scopus database. In addition, only English-language literature was considered. Practical implications: The review showed a lack on the development of knowledge not only in the hardware field, but also in the managerial field. It is recommendable that studies focus on areas such as required data to be exchanged, potential financial benefits, and technological and managerial challenges. Originality/value: An overview of the historical evolution of the supply chain to the Supply Chain Management 4.0 is presented. A concept of Supply Chain Management 4.0 is proposed. Application examples illustrated the practical implementation of the proposed concept.