Content area
Full text
1. Introduction
The unprecedented development of information and communication technology (ICT) (Alshawi et al., 2003) has led to a phenomenon known as digital disruption. In this context, traditional business models based predominantly on physical activities are being disrupted and shifting towards digitalisation. The digitalisation process has consequences for all industries (Büyüközkan and Göçer, 2018). Therefore, digital disruption affects not only organisations’ business models; it also significantly affects all segments of society, including new relationships and interactions with organisations and people (World Economic Forum, 2016a).
Moreover, ICT has enabled a Fourth Industrial Revolution known as Industry 4.0 (Barreto et al., 2017; Hofmann and Rüsch, 2017), with its roots in German industry (Hecklau et al., 2016) and supported mainly by the Internet of Things (IoT) and cyber-physical system (CPS) technologies (Qin et al., 2016). This has led organisations around the world to reconsider digitalisation as a necessity for which strategies must be developed. Thus ICT also has been supported by the transformation of organisations’ relationships with their network. For example, smart cities present challenges for supply chain design (Kumar et al., 2016) in order to support new operations business models, connecting customers and organisations more efficiently (Li et al., 2016; Qin et al., 2016).
In this context, digital disruption is already affecting supply chains and requiring new manufacturing strategies (Holmström and Partanen, 2014), entailing a shift from traditional production planning and control to distributed manufacturing (DM) and from large scale to micro scale, with multiple manufacturing locations (Srai et al., 2016). Additionally, the decentralisation of manufacturing with 3D printing applications (Kapetaniou et al., 2018; Mohr and Khan, 2015), also known as additive manufacturing (Strong et al., 2018), is unlocking the potential for mass customisation (Srai et al., 2016). Thus, traditional supply chains will eventually face the challenge of updating to digital supply chains (DSCs) to support new productions models, transportation modes, customer experiences and relationships, based on, among other things, real-time information exchange.
Recently, top consulting firms have highlighted the necessity of supply chain digitalisation (A.T. Kearney, 2015; Accenture, 2014; Bain & Company, 2018; Boston Consulting Group, 2018; Deloitte, 2016; Ernst & Young, 2016; McKinsey & Company, 2017; PwC, 2016; Roland Berger, 2016). Despite advancements in...