Innovation with nature
Abstract
Supply chains are growing more complicated, and many businesses and scholars are looking to nature for solutions. We provide a narrative synthesis and systematic review in this work to evaluate the state-of-the-art and identify major topics for future research into nature-inspired supply chain solutions. We evaluate supply chain strategic, tactical, and operational decisions and look for parallels between biological systems and supply networks to provide a new study agenda. According to our results, the majority of research on nature-inspired supply networks from a systemic standpoint focuses on closed-loop supply chains. Similar systemic alternatives, such as industrial symbiosis, circular economy, and industrial ecology, on the other hand, have not received as much attention. Reducing production waste and end-of-life product waste (closed loop supply chains), optimizing raw material use and extending the life of used resources (circular economy), researching the interactions between the biosphere and the technosphere (industrial ecology), and seeking solutions to industrial problems from nature (biomimicry) are all possible paths to achieving a zero-waste economy and operational levels, which must be investigated in order to provide efficient and successful solutions. Biomimicry, as a means of seeking solutions to industrial challenges by emulating natural processes and structures, represents an exciting frontier in nature-inspired supply chain research. By drawing inspiration from the resilience and efficiency observed in biological systems, businesses can potentially address operational challenges across strategic, tactical, and operational levels
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