Data-Driven Decision-Making for Sustainable Manufacturing Operations : An empirical study of supply chain operations within the Swedish manufacturing industry

Abstract: A paradigm shift is taking place in the manufacturing industry, where companies strive for adopting digital tools to be able to compete against their competitors. The endeavor of becoming digitized is taking place simultaneously as the global awareness of sustainability increases. For the reasons that current literature is experiencing a knowledge gap that links data-driven processes, sustainability, and supply chain operations, there is a need for further exploration within this area. Therefore, the aim of this report is to investigate the business opportunities and challenges of data-driven decision-making, and how it relates to more sustainable supply chain operations within the manufacturing industry. To investigate the area within data-driven decision-making and its impact on manufacturing supply chain operations, a literature review was initially conducted and was followed by interview sessions with case companies and experts. In total, 14 interviews were conducted within the area of sustainability, supply chain operations, and data-driven decision-making. The interviews were conducted to follow the designed framework and thus provide knowledge for the challenges, advantages, applications, and value capture in relation to data-driven decision-making and supply chain operations. Comparing the empirical data with previous literature it was noted that data-driven decision-making entails both multiple challenges and advantages when it comes to improving manufacturers' sustainable performance. The main challenges include establishing efficient information sharing, standardized systems, and obtaining data that shows both reliability and validity. Consequently, by solving these challenges the sustainable benefits can be fulfilled, including a mitigated bullwhip-effect, improved planning, and reduced CO2 emissions. These benefits are driven by the transparency, automatization, and optimization that is incorporated with data-driven decision-making. In conclusion, realizing data-driven decision-making within the manufacturing industry entails several challenges, but if companies overcome the challenges the potential benefits will be unlimited.