Development of an Industry 4.0-oriented Tool Supporting Circular Manufacturing: A Systematic Literature Review

The traditional linear approach to economy has been recognized as not sustainable any longer. Among the different approaches identified to reverse the current socioeconomic system, Circular Economy (CE) appears a promising field. This approach is based on 3 pillars: preservation and enhancement of natural capital, optimization of resource yields components and materials and fostering system effectiveness. Together with CE, also the concept of Industry 4.0 (I4.0) is gaining traction among manufacturers, academia and policy makers. This manuscript merges these two concepts through a literature review. More specifically, this research has been focused on clarifying how manufacturers can be supported in understanding how to adopt digital technologies to re-design their processes under circular-driven perspectives. Indeed, from the literature emerged that I4.0 might benefit circularity both in terms of modalities to deliver value and rationalization of resources. However, case studies suggest that applications in this sense are still scarce and mostly oriented to service-based and analytics-related solutions. Three main gaps have been identified: lack of a structured and practical model to merge I4.0 and CE that consider the variables characterizing real manufacturing firms, lack of focus on multi-product and multi-asset when assessing the link between I4.0 and CE and lack of a quantitative evaluation of the impact of the application of I4.0 technologies and of the benefits, or pains, to support the transition toward CE. Hence, the objective of this paper is to set the basis for a tool able to support manufacturing firms in defining Circular Business practices enabled by Industry 4.0 technologies.