A roadmap towards circular economies in pharma logistics based on returnable transport items enhanced with Industry 4.0 technologies

Schneikart, Gerald; Mayrhofer, Walter; Löffler, Clemens; Frysak, Josef

doi:10.1016/j.resconrec.2024.107615

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

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“…The success of this transformation will depend on the industry's willingness to invest in innovative RTI solutions and to build long-term partnerships that are a prerequisite in establishing circular economies. Strategic roadmaps, which have been recently published [14][15][16][17], thus should also consider requirements on the operational level, since they build the basis of informed decisions for investments in research on RTI solutions and the development of process-oriented circular economies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The stakeholder view could also apply to either of the recently derived frameworks to develop and implement RTIenabled circular economies in specific use case scenarios [14][15][16][17]. Under this assumption, this paper focuses on the perspectives of the most influential stakeholder groups with the objective of detecting and evaluating the stakeholder requirements, which are to be defined as success factors for RTI systems [18,19].…”

Section: State Of Current Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The observation that a range of challenges were mentioned, whereas requirements to be met in order to overcome those hurdles were comparably sparse, might indicate a knowledge gap in designing suitable initiatives. A couple of agendas on the integration of Industry 4.0 with circular economies solutions have already been published previously [14][15][16][17]. However, those roadmaps primarily focus on strategic issues rather than on operational problems referred to by the CEP players (Fig.…”

Section: Requirements For the Adoption Of Rti-systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Requirements for the Transformation towards Returnable Transport Item-Enabled Circular Economies in the Austrian Parcel Industry

Schneikart,

Löffler,

Brandner

et al. 2024

Teh. glas. (Online)

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The European Green Deal sets the ambitious targets of establishing the first climate neutral continent by 2050 and reducing emissions by a minimum of 55% by 2030. In order to move the involved stakeholders to action, the European Commission has formulated proposals for regulations. One such proposal defines a legal framework to force industries to reduce the environmental burden caused by packaging waste. A major waste producer is the parcel service industry (CEP; courier, express, and parcel) and the industries it serves. Once put into place by the EU member states, the new laws will force all players in these sectors to increase business innovations in circular economies, which are based on the principles of recycling and reuse. Circular economies can be achieved by the implementation of returnable transport items (RTI) integrated with Industry 4.0 technologies. The ongoing research project ReKEP, which is largely funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology, investigates potential impacts of RTI-based circular economies in the Austrian parcel service industry. The project’s particular interest is to identify the requirements of the most relevant stakeholder groups in the CEP industry for the successful transformation towards RTI-enabled circular economies. For this purpose, we conducted interviews with leaders and decision-makers of 10 stakeholder organizations, including producers, retailers, CEP contractors and the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber. This paper summarizes the interview results, which indicate that, despite recognizing the high potential of RTIs for reaching ecological sustainability goals, the contemporary awareness of the EU Green Deal and the concomitant responsibility to take action seems too low for successful implementation. The study outcome suggests that research and development in RTI should focus on operational requirements of workers and line managers from CEP industries for successful transformations to circular economies.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%