Susana Duarte

The Industry 4.0 addresses a radical change on business processes. Through communication technology, objects interact with each other; the physical and digital worlds merge. This makes an environment more flexible, allowing to respond faster to specific customer requirements. Therefore, businesses need to rapidly adapt to avoid being left behind. A business model is required to meet the new concepts of Industry 4.0. In addition, lean and green characteristics may align with business model elements. Understanding how these concepts interact is something that need clarification. Based on literature review, a conceptual relationship between Business Model (Canvas), Lean and green management approach and Industry 4.0 approach is presented. Lean and green management characteristics are identified to be aligned through a Business Model Canvas perspective. Also, the concepts of the Industry 4.0 can be applied in each element of the Business Model Canvas. Managers and entrepreneurs can create, design or redefine their business knowing the lean and green application and Industry 4.0 execution. This research aims to contribute to the discussion of the relationships between these concepts. To the authors’ knowledge, this work is one of the first to try to relate these concepts.

Our world is facing substantial economic and social challenges due to an increasing pace of technological developments. The introduction of the Internet of Things (IoT) is ushering in a fourth industrial revolution. The vision of Industry 4.0 describes a whole new approach to business operations, and especially the production industries which is characterized by a new level of socio-technical interaction. Emphasizing the importance of intangibles management, organizations have become increasingly focused on the Intellectual Capital (IC) as the main source of value creation. From a strategic point of view, IC is linked to the ability to create and apply the potential of an organizations knowledge based capabilities, and is commonly categorized into three main components: human, structural and relational capital. The industry 4.0 is changing the way we create value which requires from organizations and individuals a rethinking of what is expected or desired from the internet-connected devices. As a phenomenon of interactions and complementarities, IC can offer a possible pathway for reconfiguring business models. The contribution of this work is mainly conceptual. The aim of this paper is to explore what has been researched so far about the importance of industry 4.0 with impact in organizational value creation and how the theory of intellectual capital can help to leverage its benefits. To achieve this objective, a comprehensive review of journal articles, conference papers, books and international reports was performed

Green and lean paradigms have been adopted by companies in order to manage their relationships with suppliers in a supply chain management context, but nearly always separately and with little understanding of their influence on company performance. This paper proposes a theoretical framework for the analysis of the influence of green and lean upstream supply chain management practices on the sustainable development of businesses. To attend this objective, a set of performance measures covering economic (operational cost, environmental cost, and inventory cost), environmental (business wastage, green image, and CO 2 emission), and social (corruption risk, supplier screening and local supplier) perspectives is proposed. An explanatory case study was conducted at a Portuguese automaker to test qualitatively the validity of the proposed theoretical framework. From the case study, a model is suggested, which encompasses the relationships between green and lean upstream supply chain practices and sustainable business development.