Influence of Industry 4.0 on supply chain resilience: The case of chlor-alkali supply chain
A qualitative case study of the chlor-alkali supply chain
S. Chittur Ramasubramaniam (TU Delft - Technology, Policy and Management)
Lóránt Tavaszzy – Coach (TU Delft - Transport and Planning)
MW Ludema – Mentor (TU Delft - Transport and Logistics)
Anneke Zuiderwijk – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Information and Communication Technology)
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Abstract
The usage of Industry 4.0 technologies isgaining a lot of popularity in the context of manufacturing industries. Theyoffer improvements to the traditional manufacturing environment by offeringmore connectivity and integration in the business processes. Many companies aremoving towards these technologies to harness these improvements. Using Industry4.0 technologies improves performance, efficiency and even competitive advantage.Whereas, it is not known how it affects supply chain resilience-ability of thesupply chain to react to disruptive events and quickly regain performance. Thereis a chance that Industry 4.0 changes the competencies of an organisation andmakes it more vulnerable to disruptions. The objective of this research is to ascertainhow Industry 4.0 influences supply chain resilience and in what ways it can beused to improve the latter.For investigating this problem, aqualitative case study design was used. The usage of Industry 4.0 technologieswithin the chlor-alkali supply chain was analysed. Literature reviews ofIndustry 4.0 and supply chain resilience were conducted to gain a betterunderstanding. The usage of the following Industry 4.0 technologies was considered- Internet of Things, Cyber-Physical Systems, Cloud computing, EnterpriseResource Planning, and Big data analytics. Data were gathered throughsemi-structured interviews with two respondents. The study finds that Industry 4.0 has a limitedpositive influence on supply chain resilience when the disruption arises withinthe supply chain. But, when there is disruption arises outside the supplychain, it has no impact or sometimes a negative impact on supply chainresilience. Additionally, this study proposes three strategies that can be usedto implement Industry 4.0 to have a positive impact on resilience. They are themapping of critical processes, design and programming of the system, andvisibility enhancement within the supply chain. These strategies can be used by managerswhen they are evaluating the implementation of Industry 4.0 within theirorganisations and supply chains. This is a unique study that bridges theknowledge gap and assesses the influence of Industry 4.0 on supply chainresilience.