Dissertation
Environmental opportunities and challenges for IoT technologies in sustainable supply chain operations: from industries to products
IoT technology poses serval opportunities to supply chains. This thesis employs grey correlation and forecasting models, system dynamics, agent-based modeling, and ex-ante LCA to investigate and quantify the opportunities and risks of IoT-enabled sustainable supply chain operations from both industrial and product perspectives. From an industry perspective, the increasing adoption of IoT technologies will contribute to the transition toward green logistics.
- Author
- S.T. Ding
- Date
- 31 October 2024
- Links
- Thesis in Leiden Repository
As more supply nodes integrate IoT systems, critical information will be more accessible to decision-makers. This facilitates optimized resource allocation within the industry, thereby minimizing unnecessary waste of resources and reducing negative environmental impacts.From a supply chain (product) perspective, the capabilities of the IoT (enabling real-time monitoring, tracking, and information exchange for optimization) help to reduce average inventory and shipment fluctuations. They bring significant net environmental benefits for IoT-enabled logistics chains compared with competitors using conventional supply chains, also due to the fact that current and emerging IoT systems cause comparatively limited environmental burdens. Investment in IoT hence usually will result in environmental benefits.