Abstract
In the last two decades the term sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) has become quite popular. Organizations are working on sustainability of their supply chain (SC). Sustainability covers environmental, social, and economic aspects of different supply chain management activities. Organizations are continuously working in the direction of making their processes and product green. On the environmental front, use of renewable source of energy, reducing waste of energy, reducing carbon footprints is important. Simultaneously, reuse of products, re-cycling, and following environmental standards while disposing off is also recommended. In this chapter, the author has identified 13 issues and challenges of SSCM from literature review and expert opinion. Simultaneously, the author has also identified nine new technologies of modern time used in industries. Further, the author has tried to analyze the linkage between the challenges of sustainability and intelligent technologies by Jaccard's similarity coefficient methodology.
TopSustainability And Sustainable Manufacturing
U.S. Department of Commerce (2010) defined sustainable manufacturing (SM) as “creation of manufactured products that use processes that are nonpolluting, conserve energy and natural resources, and are economically sound and safe for employees, communities and consumers”. The basic concepts of lean, green and sustainable manufacturing are explained graphically in Figure 1. India as a growing economy is using its natural resources like land, hydrocarbons, water and minerals at a very faster rate. Demand of basic amenities of industrial development like energy and raw materials are very high. Excessive and unsystematic use of hydrocarbons and other natural resources leads to pollution of land, air and water and overall growth seems unsustainable (Mittal et al., 2013). Sustainable manufacturing means ability to sustain, producing less-waste or carbonless manufacturing (Bhanot et al., 2015). Practices of reprocess, recreate and recycling make both products and processes sustainable in long run. Intelligent and interconnecting production processes can help in reducing pollution and waste of natural resources (Kulatunga et al., 2013). Three aspects of sustainability are shown in Figure 2.
In today’s globalised trend, the collaboration of academia and industry professionals is imperative when it comes to identifying the solutions for the sustainability issues (Bhanot et al., 2015).
Figure 1. Lean vs Green vs Sustainable Manufacturing