Purpose Industry 4.0 is one of the most emergent research topics attracting significant interest by researchers as well as practitioners. Many articles have been published with regards Industry 4.0; however, there is no research that clearly conceptualizes Industry 4.0 in the context of supply chain. This paper aims to propose the term “Supply Chain 4.0” together with a novel conceptual framework that captures the essence of Industry 4.0 within the supply chain context. As Industry 4.0 is inherently a revolution, and as revolutions are evolutionary, this research also aims to capture the evolution of Supply Chain 4.0 from maturity levels perspective to facilitate the formulation and development of Supply Chain 4.0 strategy. Design/methodology/approach Following a deductive research approach and a qualitative strategy, a systematic literature review (SLR) was adopted as the research method seeking to understand the relationships among supply chain, Industry 4.0 and maturity levels research. The three phases of the SLR process utilized are: planning, conducting and reporting. A concept-oriented technique was applied to the outputs of the SLR to obtain the key constructs that would facilitate the development of the conceptual Supply Chain 4.0 framework. Findings The SLR showed that there is limited research linking Industry 4.0 to supply chain. Nevertheless, it was possible to extract a set of thematic categories from the analysis of the articles which are referred to as constructs as they form the core of the conceptual Supply Chain 4.0 framework. These constructs are managerial and capability supporters, technology levers, processes performance requirements and strategic outcomes. Each of these constructs consists of a number of elements which are referred to as “dimensions” in this research and a total of 21 dimensions were identified during the SLR. The SLR also demonstrated that maturity propositions for Industry 4.0 are still embrionary and entirely missing in the context of supply chain. Hence, this research develops and proposes a maturity levels framework that is underpinned by the core constructs of Supply Chain 4.0 and the corresponding dimensions. As these proposed frameworks are conceptual, this research also identifies and proposes several research directions to help fortify the Supply Chain 4.0 concept. Research limitations/implications This research argues that the frameworks are robust because the constructs and dimensions are grounded in the literature, thus demonstrating both theoretical and practical relevance and value. As Supply Chain 4.0 research is still in infancy, there is a range of open research questions suggested based on the frameworks that could serve as guides for researchers to further develop the Supply Chain 4.0 concept. Also, practitioners can use this framework to develop better understanding of Supply Chain 4.0 and be able to evaluate the maturity of their organizations. As the proposed frameworks are conceptual, they require further empirical research to validate them and obtain new insights. Originality/value The SLR demonstrated a clear gap in literature with regards to Industry 4.0 in the context of supply chain, and also in the context of Industry 4.0 maturity levels for supply chain. This research is unique as it formulates and introduces novel frameworks that close these gaps in literature. The value of this research lies in the fact that it makes significant contribution in terms of understanding of Supply Chain 4.0 with a clear set of constructs and dimensions that form Supply Chain 4.0, which provides the foundation for further work in this area.

Lean production has emerged in the past decades as one of the most popular themes in the business and manufacturing literature as it is the most extended production paradigm currently applied in industry. The lean approach is characterized by five principles (value, mapping the value stream, flow, pull and continuous improvement) that facilitate the reduction of waste (muda). In parallel, the environmental performance of a company in terms of pollution prevention, reduction and use/waste of resources is an issue increasingly concerning companies and customers in recent years. The focus on these issues has spurred an area of research that is commonly known as green production. Lean and green production concepts are both focused on waste reduction, and several authors have studied their relationships (commonalities and divergences) and the synergic effects of integrating these two management approaches. This research conducts a literature review in order to: (1) identify if firms which have applied lean principles and methods have improved their environmental measures; (2) highlight the environmental measures that are positively affected by lean practices adoption; and finally (3) underline the most important lean practices in relation to impacting environmental performance. The results are condensed in a final matrix that links some key lean practices to specific environmental measures. This matrix is of great interest for both researchers and practitioners since it suggests some possible relationships between various lean practices and the improvement of specific green performances. The findings give light regarding the state-ofthe-art relationships between the lean and green production approaches.

The development and adoption of the concept of circular economy in the last two decades have been remarkable. However, despite its widespread adoption, little progress has been made regarding its measurement, especially in manufacturing SMEs. This paper, therefore, proposes a Circularity Measurement Toolkit (CMT) which enables the assessment of the degree of circularity in manufacturing SMEs. A conceptual CMT framework, which provided the basis for the proposed tool and that defined the different types of circular practices and a classification or levels of circularity was developed from an extensive literature reviewed. To ensure the structure's accuracy of the proposed CMT in terms of requirements to be measured, the monitoring process and actions involved, the tool was verified through a Delphi-study. Furthermore, its practicality was validated through a case study approach in a manufacturing SME. This paper contributes by filling a gap in the CE measurement field through the proposal of the CMT. Besides providing an evaluation of the degree of circularity in the practices of manufacturing SMEs, companies can also employ the proposed CMT to identify corrective actions or future efforts for the adoption of CE practices.

Despite the encouraging results obtained from the application of Green Lean, organizations have found the integration of Green and Lean, and their implementation as an integrated approach, challenging, especially when resources are limited. This paper aims to overcome some of these challenges by presenting a model for integrating Lean and Green based on the Gemba-Kaizen approach. The objective is to help organizations reduce their environmental waste in a practical and easy manner with limited resources. The proposed model was developed on the basis of a through literature review on Gemba and Kaizen, conducted on peer-reviewed journal articles and pragmatic books with managerial impact on the subject, and the more than 40 years of accumulated experience of the authors as academics, researchers, industrialists and consultants after having worked on a number of projects for multinational organisations that wanted to implement Lean Six Sigma and/or environmental management systems in various industrial sectors. The model was validated through two cases study in the aerospace and automotive industries. The results showed that the proposed model helped the case organizations to reduce the consumption of resources and improve their environmental performance. The proposed model can be the basis for further research on Lean and Green, contributing to help organizations to improve their sustainability performance. This research presents a first attempt to develop a model which integrates Lean and Green based on a combined Gemba-Kaizen approach.

The adoption/utilisation of Lean, Agile and Green (LAG) practices in both the manufacturing and service sector is rising. However, there yet remain a research gap to precisely evaluate the relationship between LAG practices and business competitiveness (e.g, achieving reduction in cost, lead time and environmental recyclable waste). This research aims to explore this relationship, specifically in fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) businesses. The hypothesised relationships are tested with data collected from 96 FMCG companies. Structural Equation Modelling is applied to evaluate different channels of achieving business competitiveness through the adoption of Lean, Agile and Green. The findings suggest that competitive outcomes vary with the adoption of LAG practices in specific product life cycle stages. This implies that awareness of the product life cycle concept is essential. A combination of LAG practices for the sole purpose of reducing environmental waste is negatively related to environmental waste reduction. LAG practices are more efficiently adopted when the adopters are equipped with expert knowledge on the paradigms and their individual practices. This research has approached the attainment of competitiveness in the FMCG businesses by analysing management efforts that improve cost performance, lead time and environmental sustainability aspects of business operations. The research has also considered the product life cycle stages in analysing the impacts of management efforts. AbstractThe adoption/utilisation of Lean, Agile and Green (LAG) practices in both the manufacturing and service sector is rising. However, there yet remain a research gap to precisely evaluate the relationship between LAG practices and business competitiveness (e.g, achieving reduction in cost, lead time and environmental recyclable waste). This research aims to explore this relationship, specifically in fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) businesses. The hypothesised relationships are tested with data collected from 96 FMCG companies. Structural Equation Modelling is applied to evaluate different channels of achieving business competitiveness through the adoption of Lean, Agile and Green. The findings suggest that competitive outcomes vary with the adoption of LAG practices in specific product life cycle stages. This implies that awareness of the product life cycle concept is essential. A combination of LAG practices for the sole purpose of reducing environmental waste is negatively related to environmental waste reduction. LAG practices are more efficiently adopted when the adopters are equipped with expert knowledge on the paradigms and their individual practices. This research has approached the attainment of competitiveness in the FMCG businesses by analysing management efforts that improve cost performance, lead time and environmental sustainability aspects of business operations. The research has also considered the product life cycle stages in analysing the impacts of management efforts.