Sustainable supplier selection based on industry 4.0 initiatives within the context of circular economy implementation in supply chain operations

This study proposes a decision framework based on industry 4.0 initiatives within circular economy implementation to evaluate and select sustainable suppliers. In this context, supplier selection, 4.0, have emerged as key topics of the contemporary operations management debate. The mix method approach combining literature review industrial expert’s inputs was adopted identify four main categories twenty-one sub-categories relevant selection decision. A multi-criteria decision-making support tool composed ‘best-worst method’ (BWM) VIKOR (VlseKriterijumska Optimizacija I Kompromisno Resenje) applied aid in evaluation Pakistan’s textile manufacturing company. BWM first determine relative importance weights, then, used rank findings suggest that, company places much emphasis “Technological Infrastructure (TI)” with weight 0.356 “a positive organizational culture towards initiatives” (OG3) global 0.139 when embarking such decisions, ranked 2 top supplier. Managerial post-selection benchmarking negotiations future research directions are also introduced.