Applicability of Lean and Green Concepts in Logistics 4.0: A Systematic Review of Literature

Sustainability is emerging as a main consideration throughout the industrial world due to the environmental pollution and degradation happening in a major scale as a result of industrial wastes while lean management is becoming a popular management tool in minimizing waste. Logistics industry contributes for these issues due to the wastes released in a considerable amount. Experts have highlighted that implementing lean principles in parallel to green concepts is more successful; which could lead to waste and cost reduction. A theoretical gap has been identified in the field of logistics in applying lean and green concepts in the context of Industry 4.0. A comprehensive literature review was conducted to address the identified research gap with the objective of examining the important lean practices and green concepts which are expected to enhance the operational performance of logistics functions. A key word based search, analysis of the topic and abstract, full text review were the steps followed respectively, for selecting the most relevant research papers which have been proven as valid, accepted and published to extract the knowledge for this study. As the major contribution, authors have developed a conceptual framework which focuses on the enhancement of operational performance of logistics operations by applying lean and green concepts with special reference to Industry 4.0 technologies. The results of the study will be beneficial for the LSP as it will suggest the strategies, concepts and techniques to enhance the operational performance of logistics functions.