Challenges for the Adoption of Industry 4.0 in the Sustainable Manufacturing Supply Chain

This book chapter explores the challenges associated with adopting Industry 4.0 technologies in the context of achieving a sustainable manufacturing supply chain. The chapter highlights both general and technology-specific hurdles that organizations encounter when implementing Industry 4.0, such as dealing with data accumulation and compatibility issues with legacy systems, data management complexities, data protection, privacy and cyber attack risks, cost considerations, and workforce upskilling and transition. The chapter emphasizes the importance of addressing these challenges to enable the effective incorporation of Industry 4.0 technologies for sustainability goals. It provides insights and recommendations for mitigating these challenges, including prioritizing sustainability considerations during technology selection and implementation, emphasizing energy efficiency and environmental impact assessments in technology design and deployment, incorporating ethical frameworks and guidelines for data usage, privacy, and fairness in AI and IoT systems, encouraging collaboration among stakeholders to develop industry standards and best practices for sustainable technology adoption, among a few others. By proactively addressing these challenges, organizations can leverage the transformative potential of Industry 4.0 while driving sustainability in their manufacturing supply chains.