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 research team will be constituted by Paolo Rosa (PhD in Economics and Management of Technology got @ University of Pavia in 2018) as main reference person, and Luca Fumagalli. Professors Marco Taisch and Sergio Terzi of the Manufacturing Group of the School of Management POLIMI will also be involved. The research activity will consider also the collaboration with other POLIMI’s PhD students and post-doc operating in the Manufacturing Group, like Roberto Rocca, Federica Acerbi and Marco Spaltini. This will create a stimulating environment for the new PhD candidate. One main idea of the research team is to create cooperation with the MADE Competence Centre Scarl (where University of Pavia and Politecnico di Milano are academic partners). Given the current role of Paolo Rosa at MADE (as sustainability focal point), he will act as facilitator between the Manufacturing Group and MADE, by supporting the PhD candidate’s activities. Some of these activities will be also implemented within the Manufacturing Groups’ Industry 4.0 Lab @ Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering of POLIMI.