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The manufacturing sector is highly competitive and operationally complex. Therefore, the strategic alignment between operational excellence methodologies and Industry 4.0 technologies is one of the issues that need to be addressed. The main aim of the study is to determine the critical factors of strategic alignment between operational excellence methodologies and Industry 4.0 technologies for manufacturing industries and make comparative analyses between automotive, food and textile industries in terms of strategic alignment between operational excellence methodologies and Industry 4.0 technologies.

First, determining the critical factors based on literature review and expert opinions, these criteria are weighted, and analytical hierarchy process is run to calculate the weights of these criteria. Afterward, the best sector is determined by the grey relational analysis method according to the criteria for the three manufacturing industries selected for the study.

As a result of AHP, “Infrastructure for Right Methodology, Techniques and Tools, is in the first place,” Organizational Strategy, is in the second place, while the third highest critical factor is “Capital Investment”. Moreover, based on grey relational analysis (GRA) results, the automotive industry is determined as the best alternative in terms of strategic alignment between operational excellence (OPEX) methodologies and I4.0 technologies.

This study is unique in that it is primarily possible to obtain the order of importance within the criteria and to make comparisons between three important manufacturing industries that are important for the economies of the world.

With the rapid change that has taken place with digitalization and data-driven approaches in supply chains, business environment become more competitive and reaching sustainability in supply chains become even more challenging. In order to manage supply chains properly, in terms of considering environmental, social and economic impacts, organizations need to deal with huge amount of data and improve organizations' data management skills. From this view, increased number of stakeholders and dynamic environment reveal the importance of data-driven technologies in sustainable supply chains. This complex structure results in new kind of risks caused by data-driven technologies. Therefore, the aim of the study to analyze potential risks related to data privacy, trust, data availability, information sharing and traceability, i.e. in sustainable supply chains.

A hybrid multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model, which is the integration of step-wise weight assessment ratio analysis (SWARA) and TOmada de Decisao Interativa Multicriterio (TODIM) methods, is going to be used to prioritize potential risks and reveal the most critical sustainability dimension that is affected from these risks.

Results showed that economic dimension of the sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) is the most critical concept while evaluating risks caused by data-driven technologies. On the other hand, risk of data security, risk of data privacy and weakness of information technology systems and infrastructure are revealed as the most important risks that organizations should consider.

The contribution of the study is expected to guide policymakers and practitioners in terms of defining potential risks causes by data-driven technologies in sustainable supply chains. In future studies, solutions can be suggested based on these risks for achieving sustainability in all stages of the supply chain causes by data-driven technologies.

COVID-19 is a global event affecting supply chain operations and human health. With COVID-19, many issues in business models, business processes and supply chains, especially in the manufacturing industry, have had to change. The ability to analyze supply chain performances and ensure circularity in supply chains has become one of the factors whose importance has increased rapidly with COVID-19. Therefore, it aims to determine which supply chain performance criteria come to the fore for the company under consideration to accelerate the transformation into high performance and circularity in supply chains.

In this study, a new circular-SCOR model is proposed, and 17 supply chain performance measurement criteria are prioritized for a manufacturing company in the context of circular economy principles during COVID-19 by using stepwise weight assessment ratio analysis and analytical hierarchy process method, separately.

As a result, for both methods, in the case study discussed, the demand fulfillment rate is determined as the most prominent criterion in line with the circular economy principles in the COVID-19 period in manufacturing supply chains.

It is expected that this study will contribute to managers and policy makers as it addresses the “new normal” that started after COVID-19 and the criteria to be considered in supply chain performance measurement and emphasizes the need to adopt circular supply chains, especially in manufacturing industries.

The aim of this study is to evaluate Big Data Analytics (BDA) drivers in the context of food supply chains (FSC) for transition to a Circular Economy (CE) and Sustainable Operations Management (SOM).

Ten different BDA drivers in FSC are examined for transition to CE; these are Supply Chains (SC) Visibility, Operations Efficiency, Information Management and Technology, Collaborations between SC partners, Data-driven innovation, Demand management and Production Planning, Talent Management, Organizational Commitment, Management Team Capability and Governmental Incentive. An interpretive structural modelling (ISM) methodology is used to indicate the relationships between identified drivers to stimulate transition to CE and SOM. Drivers and pair-wise interactions between these drivers are developed by semi-structured interviews with a number of experts from industry and academia.

The results show that Information Management and Technology, Governmental Incentive and Management Team Capability drivers are classified as independent factors; Organizational Commitment and Operations Efficiency are categorized as dependent factors. SC Visibility, Data-driven innovation, Demand management and Production Planning, Talent Management and Collaborations between SC partners can be classified as linkage factors. It can be concluded that Governmental Incentive is the most fundamental driver to achieve BDA applications in FSC transition from linearity to CE and SOM. In addition, Operations Efficiency, Collaborations between SC partners and Organizational Commitment are key BDA drivers in FSC for transition to CE and SOM.

The interactions between these drivers will provide benefits to both industry and academia in prioritizing and understanding these drivers more thoroughly when implementing BDA based on a range of factors. This study will provide valuable insights. The results from this study will help in drawing up regulations to prevent food fraud, implementing laws concerning government incentives, reducing food loss and waste, increasing tracing and traceability, providing training activities to improve knowledge about BDA and focusing more on data analytics.

The main contribution of the study is to analyze BDA drivers in the context of FSC for transition to CE and SOM. This study is unique in examining these BDA drivers based on FSC. We hope to find sustainable solutions to minimize losses or other negative impacts on these SC.

The study analysed the amount of plate waste in a university refectory in Izmir, Turkey to find ways of minimizing plate waste in the university, providing sustainability and contributing to the development of circular economy and raising awareness about the plate waste problem.

Observation and semi-structured interviews were used to determine the volume of plate waste and level of awareness of academicians, students and administrative staff and suggest sustainable solutions for food waste in university refectories. The data gained from the semi-structured interviews were analysed with qualitative analysis software (MAXQDA®).

Plate waste in the university's refectories is increasing due to the lack of precautionary measures. Academicians, students and administrative staff all showed low awareness rates.

This study is original in investigating theoretically and empirically one of the main reasons for food waste, namely plate waste in mass consumption sites, and evaluating the effect of food waste from an economic, social and environmental perspective.