Sarath Menon

The purpose of this insight paper is to provide an overview of early studies implemented on examining the influence and impacts of Digitalisation in sustainable manufacturing, with the key focus towards the new Digital Supply Chain (DSC), through the implementation and adoptability of Industry 4.0 parameters within the context of sustainable manufacturing. There have been few literature that discusses the evolution and transformation of the transformation of traditional manufacturing methods through comparisons of conceptual models and state of art reviews of digitalisation and industry 4.0 with specific focus on digitisation within supply chain processes. Through early studies within literature, it was noted that there is a gap in linking Sustainable Manufacturing practices to the new elements and actors of industry 4.0 and its wider impacts on DSC. Hence, the authors aim to explore firstly, sustainable manufacturing and the practices adopted within supply chain, with specific case of food manufacturing sectors, before finally examining the literature concerning the focus of digitalisation in manufacturing processes.

Over the past years supply chain has undergone a massive change, from operational function which reported to sales or manufacturing which then focused on ensuring the supply of production lines and delivery to customers, to an independent supply chain management team which is led by Chief Supply Chain Officer in some organisation. Industry 4.0 and their innovative technologies has created a disruption which requires the organisations to redesign their supply chain. Emergence of the industry 4.0 has paved the way for next level of supply chain- Digital Supply Chain. Global market leading manufacturers has positioned themselves with the world of supply chain 4.0 to meet the expectation of their end customers. Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) plays has major role in supporting the global market leaders. But SMEs lacks the knowledge of significance of digitalising themselves with the extremely complex supply chain 4.0 which may lead them to losses and closures if they do not transform themselves with the latest innovative technologies and adopt digital supply chain (DSC). This paper aims to review the current literature's on digital supply chain to gain insight of current status of relevant literature's which focus on Digital transformation of supply chain within manufacturing SMEs.

This research study aims to examine and review the key advantages of smart manufacturing to achieve and improve performance within global supply chain environments. In recent years supply chain has been arisen as one of the major areas to gain a competitive edge in manufacturing industries. The current business methodologies of short product life cycle, increased outsourcing, expanding product variety, improved customer focus and improved technologies has led supply chain to be some challenging and complex tasks. Smart Manufacturing has been considered as a successful advancement in industrial revolution featuring resource efficiency, adaptability, agitability with wide application of internet and other innovative engineering technologies integrating of customers and business value processes creating a better manufacturing environment. The research is at its preliminary stages and will aim to examine and evaluate existing literature within the areas of smart and digital manufacturing and compare examples of best practices and methods towards creating a detailed comprehensive and systematic finding of the key research studies. This paper is a literature review which aims to review the benefits of smart manufacturing and its influence to achieve an improved performance in supply chain.