Innovation and Sustainability in New Product Development and Supply Chain

Dear Colleagues,

Increased competition, customer requirements, and environmental challenges lead to the search for innovative and sustainable products. Many firms have incorporated sustainability into their new product development and supply chain management strategies via different innovation methods. Both scholars and practitioners have begun to pay attention to issues, such as sustainable product design and development, sustainable supply chain management, reverse logistics, and new digital technologies for sustainability.

However, sustainable product development and supply chain management (SCM) may incur additional costs and affect firm innovation. As a result, further research on how to incorporate sustainability in new product development (NPD) and SCM is necessary. New frameworks, processes, and methods are also needed to balance innovation and sustainability. Furthermore, with the development of digital technologies (such as artificial intelligence, Big Data analytics, blockchain, cloud computing, digital twins, and the Internet of Things), firms have adopted digital technologies to increase the efficiency of their NPD processes and supply chain management. It is necessary to explore the effect of deploying such technologies on firms’ sustainability performance of NPD and SCM.

This Special Issue, "Innovation and Sustainability in New Product Development and Supply Chain" aims to explore new directions in sustainable product development and sustainable supply chain management research. Relevant subjects include, but are not limited to:

• The influence of sustainable product innovation on supply chain performance;
• The application of digital technologies (such as artificial intelligence, Big Data analytics, blockchain, cloud computing, digital twins, and the Internet of Things) to supply chain and NPD for sustainability and innovation;
• Sustainable innovation practices in new product development and supply chains;
• Sustainability performance evaluation for NPD and supply chains;
• Sustainable product/service design framework, technologies, and case studies;
• Data-driven new sustainable product development;
• Failure mode and effect analysis in sustainable product development and supply chains;
• Decision making in managing innovation and sustainability in new product development and supply chain;
• Human-centric product/service design technologies, and case studies.

Prof. Dr. Wenyan Song
Prof. Dr. Hao Li
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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