Cleaner Logistics and Supply Chain · 2022 · 122 citations · 82 references
ManagementOperations ManagementSupply Chain ManagementLogistics ManagementSupply Chain StrategySustainable Supply Chain ManagementSupply Chain SustainabilitySustainable ProductionSustainable Supply ChainsWarehouse ManagementWarehouse OperationsWarehousing ManagementIndustry 4.0 AdoptionInterlinkages Among Sustainable Development GoalsSustainability In WarehousingSustainable Development Goals AlignmentSustainable WarehousingSystematic Literature ReviewWarehouse Management IntegrationWarehouse Performance Evaluation
The study examines how Industry 4.0 technologies applied to warehouse management can advance UN Sustainable Development Goals, aiming to reveal benefits, challenges, and future research implications. The authors performed a systematic literature review of peer‑reviewed articles from Scopus and Web of Science, using frequency and content analyses to map benefits, issues, and challenges of Industry 4.0 in warehouses relative to SDGs. The review shows a rapid rise in Industry 4.0 research in logistics, yet only a few studies link warehouses to SDGs, with key benefits for SDGs 2, 4, 7, 9, 12, 13, while challenges include limited government support, legal and political barriers, skill shortages, and legacy warehouse infrastructure.
Warehouse management will be the focus of this article, which aims to examine the benefits and issues & challenges of using Industry 4.0 technologies to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the United Nations (UN). We conducted a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) evaluation of the published literature from credible peer-reviewed journals in the major databases Scopus and Web of Science. The analysis of literature will be a frequency analysis of the literature by considering the year of publications, the contribution of leading journals and publishers, and the methodology adopted and the content analysis of literature to get the benefits, issues & challenges of the implementation of industry 4.0 on warehouses in accordance to SDGs that were identified from the literature. Industry 4.0 research on logistics and supply chain management, as well as warehouse management, showed a significant increase in research papers in the past two years. But, the study on industry 4.0 in warehousing toward SDGs is still in its early stages, with just a few articles contributing to sustainable practices. Our findings from the literature reveal that the major benefits of implementing industry 4.0 in warehouse management as per SDGs are "SDG – 2 (Zero Hunger)", "SDG – 4 (Quality Education)", "SDG – 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy)", "SDG − 9 (Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure)", "SDG – 12 (Ensure Sustainable Consumption and Production Patterns)", and "SDG – 13 (Climate Action)". Lack of government support, legal issues, lack of skilled manpower, political issues, and old/traditional warehouses are the major issues & challenges of industry 4.0 in warehouses to avert the deed of achieving SDGs in developing countries. This study is one of those that apply industry 4.0 in the context of warehouse management, thus it will reveal insights and implications for future research.
82