Role of Technology in Supply Chain Management for a Circular Economy

Introduction

The circular economy (CE) is a concept that tries to establish a new business and product development paradigm. The CE idea cycles through human-environment interactions, including economics. The CE aims to eliminate waste based on the idea that living systems can model ongoing and sustainable socio-economic growth. It promotes resource efficiency and sustainability to reuse, recycle, or recover them. The supply chain expanded from transportation to the complete process of delivering a product or service to the customer. Companies create a supply chain to save costs and speed up manufacturing to stay competitive. The supply chain consists of the movement of activities, goods, or services from the supplier to the client via the producer, distributor, and retailer. Supply chain management (SCM) is the planning or management of an organisation's sourcing activities (Lee et al., 2022). SCM includes sourcing, procurement, conversion, production, and logistics. Each operation needs technology to improve SCM.

Technology is needed to make work easier and save time, money, and company resources. Many organisations invest heavily in machinery to complete tasks and deliver orders on time. The company will automate supply chain duties, for instance. SCM practitioners should examine value in terms of how shorter loops might maximise the value of materials consumption and output instead of focusing solely on a waste reduction strategy (e.g. Lean, Reduce-Reuse-Recycle, or 3Rs). Customer-supplier cooperation during downstream collection and return will extend product life as usage cascades across future repair, reuse, and refurbishment cycles. Customers and suppliers will need incentives to invest in remanufacturing, recycling materials, and improving input material quality.

Technology is a method for sharing and preserving technology of various types within an organisation. The implementation of technology usage is the direction that leads a firm to use technology to manage its supply chain from the beginning to the end of the process. In the meantime, it relies on how the corporation utilises technology based on its supply chain business. In addition, the organisation must objectively and unambiguously define its objectives before utilising technology in the supply chain. Information flow must also be clear. Information flow quality should be used to evaluate supply chain employees' grasp, satisfaction, and expectations. Technology utilisation implementation helps exploit commercial profit and release future value practices.

The business must employ cutting-edge technologies such as the such as Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID), and Big Data, among others. Utilising modern technology can also construct a large-scale intelligence infrastructure to integrate data, information, material things, products or services, and supply chain business activities (Lee et al., 2022). Few measures must be taken to implement technology utilisation in the supply chain. To ensure technology compatibility, every step must be followed. Technology adoption can help the organisation meet supply chain goals like profit maximisation and customer satisfaction in the CE.

A Circular Supply Chain (CSC) defines when a company uses these materials to produce new or previously owned goods. Hence, a company that recycles its garbage and accepts returned consumer items participates in a CSC. CSC says innovation in the CE transition must shift from ownership to access to services. CSCs are closed and open because resources can move across biological and technical cycles and other supply chains. Suppliers will be involved in developing new products from the outset to extend the lifespan of products through extra services and identify new applications for them as the cascade nears its conclusion (e.g. old car tires converted to floor chippings). “Traditional, waste-based thinking” must be accommodated long before circular systems can fully benefit. However, commodity and supply network design will minimise recycling. Manufacturing can create CSC and sell salvageable parts. Thus, it can help other producers increase product circularity. Meanwhile, the service sector may help expand CSC.