Enabling the Integration of Industry 4.0 and Sustainable Supply Chain Management in the Textile Industry: A Framework and Evaluation Approach

The value of Industry 4.0 technology in promoting sustainable development cannot be fully realized without considering the mutual influence between sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) and Industry 4.0. To our knowledge, the investment of Industry 4.0 technology and SSCM has not yet been studied from an integration perspective. This study aims to determine the enablers for integrating Industry 4.0 and SSCM and provide a theoretical framework and approach for evaluating those enablers. First, a human, technology, organization, and environment fit (HTOE-fit) theoretical framework is developed to identify and categorize 16 enablers. Second, Fuzzy-DEMATEL and Fuzzy-TOPSIS techniques are used to analyze the influence relationships between the enablers and then rank those enablers. The case of the textile industry in a developing economy has been investigated. Results showed that technology is the most essential aspect, and automation is the most important enabler in the textile industry. The theoretical implications are based on the HTOE-fit framework, which offers a novel approach for identifying critical enablers that are necessary for the successful integration of Industry 4.0 and SSCM, based on the above-mentioned four aspects. This study also identifies the mutual influence relationship among the enablers, which helps the textile companies in formulating investment and implementation paths for integrating Industry 4.0 and SSCM.