Given the direct exploitation of materials and natural resources, the manufacturing sector is on the forefront of sustainability and circular economy. This way, the negative impact of this sector in terms of sustainable development and climate changes must be adequately monitored and reduced. During the last decade, both circular economy and Industry 4.0 approaches have been adopted by manufacturing companies in order to cope with environmental issues and technological advances. However, current researches are showing that digital technologies could support and enable even more sustainable practices if adequately integrated and managed. The intent of this research is to establish new ways to do it in practice and support companies during the transition from linear to circular behaviours.

good knowledge of circular economy practices and industry 4.0 technologies

The team will be constituted by Paolo Rosa (he got his PhD in Pavia), as reference person. Prof. Sergio Terzi of the Manufacturing Group of the School of Management POLIMI will also be involved. The research activity will consider the collaboration with other PhD students and post-doc operating in the Manufacturing Group. This will create a stimulating environment for the new PhD candidate. One main idea is to create cooperation with the MADE Competence Centre Scarl (where University of Pavia and Politecnico di Milano are academic partners). Some of these activities will be implemented within the Manufacturing Groups’ Industry 4.0 Lab.