Time

January 20th, 2023 at 13:00 hours

Abstract:

The call for a more sustainable way of living, as a consequence of the increasing climate crisis, has left its mark on the academic discourse, international forums, and industrial agenda in the past decade. Throughout this decade, the circular economy discourse has emerged as an economic model with the purpose of decoupling resource consumption from value creation. At the same time, the rapid development of digital technologies, as part of the industry 4.0 agenda, has brought the world closer through its emphasis on transparency and data availability across entire supply chains. Most recently, the two discourses are being discussed for their mutually beneficial properties – This synergetic relation between circular economy and industry 4.0 is currently coined as the twin transformation.

Despite the increasing attention to the circular economy agenda, the industry 4.0 agenda, and now also the twin transformation agenda, manufacturers are challenged in adopting its principles and building the capabilities required to realise performance improvements accordingly. Manufacturers are struggling with identifying and utilising the structural elements of this agenda to drive their organisational transformation and build sustained competitiveness.

This research aims to address these challenges faced in this agenda by generating knowledge and developing frameworks for guiding the industrial engagement of the twin transformation. Accordingly, this research project aims to contribute to the existing knowledge body while providing relevance to practitioners by facilitating a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the twin transformation according to the following objectives. To provide: (1) An understanding of the structural elements of the twin transformation and how they can be utilised to drive the transformation to build competitive advantage in the changing industrial context. (2) Frameworks and guidelines for supporting the successful engagement with the twin transformation.

This dissertation, a collection of papers, presents the research activities conducted over the past three years. The appended papers represent both desk research and empirically based research, all aiming to balance the rigour of providing academic contributions with the relevance of aiding the industry in this transformation. The first part empirically investigates the synergetic relation between the internet of things (representing industry 4.0) and circular economy, according to ten Danish manufacturers in the early stages of their twin transformation. Additionally, a single case study investigates the contextual dependencies of barriers to circular economy transformation. The second part investigates the circular economy transformation structural elements and proposes frameworks for formulating circular economy transformation strategies. The third and final part investigates and proposes frameworks for how manufacturers can explore and exploit the use of internet of things technology in the context and pursuit of circular economy principles.

The dissertation contributes to the extant body of knowledge with (a) suggesting how the internet of things and circular economy are in a synergetic relationship, (b) factors supporting manufacturers in driving their twin transformation, and (c) frameworks for manufacturers to achieve a systems perspective in their twin transformation.