Sustainable Production and Operations in the Transition to Industry 5.0: Bridging Research and Practice
A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Sustainable Management".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 April 2027 | Viewed by 772
Editors
Interests: industrial engineering; work organization; operations management; strategic management; sustainability; education
Interests: industrial engineering; supply chain management; configuration of production systems; small and medium-sized enterprises; simulation of complex manufacturing structures
Interests: industry 4.0/5.0; organizational theory; industrial engineering; quality engineering and process improvement; organizational culture; institutional theory; and engineering education
Interests: supply chain management; circular economy; sustainability; green and sustainable sciences; agrifood supply chains; emerging market economies; operations management; business and international management; education; applied research
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The current milestone on the sustainability timeline is the transition from the digital transformation associated with Industry 4.0 to Industry 5.0, a moment in which sustainability joins resilience and human-centeredness as key pillars for shaping the future of production and operations.
These three pillars emphasize the need to address sustainability in a broad and interdisciplinary manner, drawing on contributions from management and environmental engineering, the humanities and social sciences and computer science and information technology. In this context, sustainable production and operations emerge as a particularly relevant field for connecting technological transformation with environmental, social and organizational concerns.
This perspective extends to the production of goods and services that sustain contemporary societies. Production and operations should therefore be addressed comprehensively, including product and process development, operations planning and control, logistics, supplier and supply chain management and related decision-making processes across different local and global contexts. Within this broad operations perspective, particular attention may also be given to circular economy approaches, such as closed-loop systems, remanufacturing, reverse logistics and life-cycle thinking, as well as to ethical and trustworthy AI applications that support human-centered, resilient and environmentally responsible production and operations.
The network of agents working toward sustainability also includes the relationship between academics and practitioners. This Special Issue, therefore, welcomes theoretical, empirical and practice-oriented contributions, with particular interest in studies that help bridge research and practice and that contribute to the effective implementation of sustainability-oriented approaches in real production and operations settings.
While the existing literature has broadly addressed Industry 5.0, sustainability and digital transformation, this Special Issue seeks to supplement these discussions by focusing specifically on sustainable production and operations in the transition to Industry 5.0, as well as on contributions that connect conceptual development with managerial and practical relevance.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:
- sustainable production and operations in the transition to Industry 5.0
- resilient and human-centered operations
- sustainable supply chains and logistics
- product, process and operations design for sustainability
- operations planning and control in sustainability-oriented contexts
- circular economy, closed-loop systems, remanufacturing and reverse logistics
- life-cycle thinking and life cycle assessment
- ethical and trustworthy AI for sustainable production and operations
- cross-country, cross-sector and practice-oriented studies on sustainable operations
Prof. Dr. Fernando César Almada Santos
Prof. Dr. Christoph Koch
Dr. Diego Rorato Fogaça
Dr. David Hidalgo-Carvajal
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- industry 5.0
- sustainable production
- sustainable operations
- resilience
- human-centricity
- sustainable supply chain management
- circular economy
- ethical and trustworthy AI
- bridging research and practice
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