18 The Environmental Implications of Digitalization …
261
you use digital technology to reduce the environment impact. Energy and CO 2 are
the key performance indicators, which is a well-known fact to director, department
managers, and operators. Each factory has a specific reduction goal on energy and
CO 2 emission, and needs to track and report the progress to the Group every year.
Therefore, the investment and implementation of digital technology can consider
environmental impact from the very beginning.
Digital technology can support environmental impact reduction along the
complete manufacturing value chain. There are certain positive potentials from
each application of digital technology to environmental sustainability. This can
assist on decision making when planning new investments on digital technologies,
alongside efficiency improvement and quality stability. For different environmental
impact reduction along manufacturing value chain, such as improved efficiency, dematerialization, virtualization, detection and monitoring of environmental change
or transport and distribution, different digital technologies can be adopted accordingly. On the other side, when implementing a new digital technology, it also brings
opportunities on exploring potentials on reducing environmental impact.
However, digitalization is not always coming along with positive impacts to environment. For instance, robots’ implementation may require more power consumption
comparing with manual operations. In addition, as one interviewee argued, the investment to building insulation itself might bring even more direct and bigger reduction to
energy consumption, comparing with investing on digitalization. Finding the balance
between efficiency increase and environmental impact reduction is the challenge
while investing on digital technologies. It also indicates needs on further exploring
potentials to environmental sustainability from digitalization.
The acceptance of digitalization from people side requires attention as well. The
attitude towards technology acceptance is not always positive, as the fact of threatening certain jobs’ replacement is happening. It is challenging to reach consensus
now on how to harness technology, which requires deep understanding on the impact
to productivity performance, human perspective and environmental sustainability.
18.5.2 Limitations
Proper presentation of the acquired knowledge to expert users supports the correct
decision to be taken (Lee et al. 2015). There is no universal model found so far
can indicate the potentials of reducing environmental impacts by digital technology
along manufacturing value chain. The model adopted to illustrate the practices from
digital technology to support environmental impact reduction along manufacturing
processes was based on Stock and Seliger’s figure of Micro Perspective of Industry
4.0 from (Stock and Seliger 2016). The point of choosing this one is value the
combination of digital technology implementation along manufacturing value chain.
The impact to environment therefore can be simply added as a third layer to this
model.
261
you use digital technology to reduce the environment impact. Energy and CO 2 are
the key performance indicators, which is a well-known fact to director, department
managers, and operators. Each factory has a specific reduction goal on energy and
CO 2 emission, and needs to track and report the progress to the Group every year.
Therefore, the investment and implementation of digital technology can consider
environmental impact from the very beginning.
Digital technology can support environmental impact reduction along the
complete manufacturing value chain. There are certain positive potentials from
each application of digital technology to environmental sustainability. This can
assist on decision making when planning new investments on digital technologies,
alongside efficiency improvement and quality stability. For different environmental
impact reduction along manufacturing value chain, such as improved efficiency, dematerialization, virtualization, detection and monitoring of environmental change
or transport and distribution, different digital technologies can be adopted accordingly. On the other side, when implementing a new digital technology, it also brings
opportunities on exploring potentials on reducing environmental impact.
However, digitalization is not always coming along with positive impacts to environment. For instance, robots’ implementation may require more power consumption
comparing with manual operations. In addition, as one interviewee argued, the investment to building insulation itself might bring even more direct and bigger reduction to
energy consumption, comparing with investing on digitalization. Finding the balance
between efficiency increase and environmental impact reduction is the challenge
while investing on digital technologies. It also indicates needs on further exploring
potentials to environmental sustainability from digitalization.
The acceptance of digitalization from people side requires attention as well. The
attitude towards technology acceptance is not always positive, as the fact of threatening certain jobs’ replacement is happening. It is challenging to reach consensus
now on how to harness technology, which requires deep understanding on the impact
to productivity performance, human perspective and environmental sustainability.
18.5.2 Limitations
Proper presentation of the acquired knowledge to expert users supports the correct
decision to be taken (Lee et al. 2015). There is no universal model found so far
can indicate the potentials of reducing environmental impacts by digital technology
along manufacturing value chain. The model adopted to illustrate the practices from
digital technology to support environmental impact reduction along manufacturing
processes was based on Stock and Seliger’s figure of Micro Perspective of Industry
4.0 from (Stock and Seliger 2016). The point of choosing this one is value the
combination of digital technology implementation along manufacturing value chain.
The impact to environment therefore can be simply added as a third layer to this
model.