Exploring the role of artificial intelligence in managing agricultural supply chain risk to counter the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic

Exploring the application of ICTs in decarbonizing the agriculture supply chain: A literature review and research agenda

The contemporary agricultural supply chain necessitates the integration of information and communication technologies to effectively mitigate the multifaceted challenges posed by climate change and rising global demand for food products. Furthermore, recent developments in information and communication technologies, such as blockchain, big data analytics, the internet of things, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, etc., have made this transformation possible. Each of these technologies plays a particular role in enabling the agriculture supply chain ecosystem to be intelligent enough to handle today's world's challenges. Thus, this paper reviews the crucial information and communication technologies-enabled agriculture supply chains to understand their potential uses and contemporary developments. The review is supported by 57 research papers from the Scopus database. Five research areas analyze the applications of the technology reviewed in the agriculture supply chain: food safety and traceability, security and information system management, wasting food, supervision and tracking, agricultural businesses and decision-making, and other applications not explicitly related to the agriculture supply chain. The study also emphasizes how information and communication technologies can help agriculture supply chains and promote agriculture supply chain decarbonization. An information and communication technologies application framework for a decarbonized agriculture supply chain is suggested based on the research's findings. The framework identifies the contribution of information and communication technologies to decision-making in agriculture supply chains. The review also offers guidelines to academics, policymakers, and practitioners on managing agriculture supply chains successfully for enhanced agricultural productivity and decarbonization.

Digital economy structuring for sustainable development: the role of blockchain and artificial intelligence in improving supply chain and reducing negative environmental impacts

In the current global context of environmental degradation and resource constraints, the pursuit of sustainable development has become an imperative. One avenue that holds promise for achieving this objective is the application of digital technologies, which have the potential to decouple economic growth from its carbon footprint. However, it is crucial to ensure that these technologies are designed and governed in a prudent manner, with a strong alignment to environmental priorities. This study focuses on exploring the potential roles of blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) in supply chain coordination and impact mitigation. Furthermore, they have the capacity to incentivize recycling and circular business models, as well as facilitate carbon accounting and offsetting. To fully realize these benefits, it is essential to deploy these technologies within inclusive collaborative frameworks that take into consideration social and ecological considerations. The study also offers policy recommendations that highlight key leverage points for digital innovation, enabling countries to embark on smart and green industrial transformation pathways. By harnessing the potential of blockchain and AI in supply chains, governments can promote transparency, traceability, and accountability, thereby fostering sustainable practices and reducing environmental impacts. Incorporating blockchain and AI technologies into supply chain approaches leads to a substantial improvement in efficiency, as demonstrated by a numerical analysis. In conclusion, the integration of innovative digital technologies offers significant opportunities to optimize production systems and economic activity while prioritizing sustainability objectives for the betterment of society and the environment. These technologies have the potential to mitigate environmental externalities by addressing information imbalances within global supply chains. However, it is essential to prioritize inclusive governance that emphasizes democratic participation to mitigate any unintended negative consequences, especially for vulnerable communities. By ensuring inclusive decision-making processes, we can maximize the positive impact of these technologies while minimizing potential harm.

Bridging the research-practice gap in supply chain risks induced by the COVID-19

Purpose

This study aims to explore the gap between research and practice on supply chain risks due to COVID-19 by exploring the changes in global emphasis on supply chain risk research.

Design/methodology/approach

This work designed a research framework to compare the research of supply chain risks before and during the COVID-19 pandemic based on machining learning and text clustering and using the relevant publications of the web of science database.

Findings

The results show that scholars' attention to supply chain crisis has increased in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, but there are differences among countries. The United Kingdom, India, Australia, the USA and Italy have greatly increased their emphasis on risk research, while the supply chain risk research growth rate in other countries, including China, has been lower than the global level. Compared with the pre-pandemic period, the research of business finance, telecommunications, agricultural economics policy, business and public environmental occupational health increased significantly during the pandemic. The hotspots of supply chain risk research have changed significantly during the pandemic, focusing on routing problem, organizational performance, food supply chain, dual-channel supply chain, resilient supplier selection, medical service and machine learning.

Research limitations/implications

This study has limitations in using a single database.

Social implications

This work compared the changes in global and various countries' supply chain risk research before and during the pandemic. On the one hand, it helps to judge the degree of response of scholars to the global supply chain risk brought about by COVID-19. On the other hand, it is beneficial for supply chain practitioners and policymakers to gain an in-depth understanding of the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and supply chain risk, which might provide insights into not only addressing the supply chain risk but also the recovery of the supply chain.

Originality/value

The initial exploration of the changing extent of supply chain risk research in the context of COVID-19 provided in this paper is a unique and earlier attempt that extends the findings of the existing literature. Secondly, this research provides a feasible analysis strategy for supply chain risk research, which provides a direction and paradigm for exploring more effective supply chain research to meet the challenges of COVID-19.

COVID-19 pandemic: Supply chain risk management by integrating Interpretive Structural Modeling and Bayesian belief network

The paper proposes a theoretical framework, based on a literature review, that analyzes the links between COVID-19 impacts and supply chain risk mitigation strategies, investigating the role of digitalization as a potential key resource to improve the effectiveness of supply chain resilience. Then, the paper empirically tests the framework through a hybrid causal mapping technique using the frameworks of Interpretive Structural Modelling and Bayesian Belief Networks methods to support supply chain decision making approaches. The findings of this paper can support managers in developing simple and traciable models for assessing interdependences among supply chain disruption sources and to invest effectively in resilience strategies.

Artificial intelligence and big data analytics for supply chain resilience: a systematic literature review

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data Analytics (BDA) have the potential to significantly improve resilience of supply chains and to facilitate more effective management of supply chain resources. Despite such potential benefits and the increase in popularity of AI and BDA in the context of supply chains, research to date is dispersed into research streams that is largely based on the publication outlet. We curate and synthesise this dispersed knowledge by conducting a systematic literature review of AI and BDA research in supply chain resilience that have been published in the Chartered Association of Business School (CABS) ranked journals between 2011 and 2021. The search strategy resulted in 522 studies, of which 23 were identified as primary papers relevant to this research. The findings advance knowledge by (i) assessing the current state of AI and BDA in supply chain literature, (ii) identifying the phases of supply chain resilience (readiness, response, recovery, adaptability) that AI and BDA have been reported to improve, and (iii) synthesising the reported benefits of AI and BDA in the context of supply chain resilience.

Artificial Intelligence Adoption and Digital Innovation: How Does Digital Resilience Act as a Mediator and Training Protocols as a Moderator?

This study aims to discover how technology firms accomplish digital innovation through AI adoption. The current research also investigated digital resilience’s role as a mediator and training protocol’s role as a moderator between AI adoption and digital innovation links. The data collection and analysis were conducted using a quantitative method. To examine the research hypotheses, we chose technology firms that face problems regarding the enhancement of digital innovation. The findings confirmed that the digital innovation of technology firms is forecasted through AI adoption. The results proved that digital resilience plays a mediating role between AI adoption and digital innovation links. Technology firms play a key role in the advancement of digital technology. This research study adds to the existing knowledge by offering a digital innovation model with the combined influence of AI adoption, digital resilience, and training protocol. This study will be helpful for top management by showing when, why, and how AI adoption helps firms in their achievement of digital innovation. Moreover, digital resilience’s role is also important in the current digitalized world; thus, we used digital resilience as mediator in this research.

Hand hygiene monitoring and compliance system using convolution neural networks

Hand hygiene monitoring and compliance systems play a significant role in curbing the spread of healthcare associated infections and the COVID-19 virus. In this paper, a model has been developed using convolution neural networks (CNN) and computer vision to detect an individual's germ level, monitor their hand wash technique and create a database containing all records. The proposed model ensures all individuals entering a public place prevent the spread of healthcare associated infections (HCAI). In our model, the individual's identity is verified using two-factor authentication, followed by checking the hand germ level. Furthermore, if required the model will request sanitizing/ hand wash for completion of the process. During this time, the hand movements are checked to ensure each hand wash step is completed according to World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines. Upon completion of the process, a database with details of the individual's germ level is created. The advantage of our model is that it can be implemented in every public place and it is easily integrable. The performance of each segment of the model has been tested on real-time images an validated. The accuracy of the model is 100% for personal identification, 96.87% for hand detection, 93.33% for germ detection and 85.5% for the compliance system respectively.

Mitigation themes in supply chain research during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic literature review

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to understand the themes and direction of supply chain mitigation and resilience research during the COVID-19 pandemic by conducting a systematic literature review (SLR) of supply chain mitigation literature since pandemic.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses the Web of Science (WoS) Database to analyze the contribution in supply chain mitigation literature by authors, themes in supply chain mitigation and the citing articles. An investigation based on bibliometric approach for the SLR represents the bibliographic data of over 530 publications between the years 2020–2021. Additionally, the article also develops graphical visualizations of the bibliographic data analyzed using the R-program Bibliometrix to ascertain the top sources, authors, keywords and conceptual themes.

Findings

Most strategies in the existing literature focused on reactive approaches to supply chain disruption and current mitigation literature has not evolved in parallel to the changing macro environment leaving a wide gap in considering vaccines as a supply chain mitigation strategy. Hence, this study identifies the potential need to focus on building proactive supply chain mitigation strategies preferably by studying the role of vaccines in mitigating supply chains.

Practical implications

This article helps the reader to understand the scientific research in terms of contributions in supply chain mitigation research since pandemic. Though, the time frame considered limits the connection the findings to previous work on supply chain disruptions and mitigation, it offers an understanding of the various mitigation themes evolved in light of mitigating the supply chain disruptions as one caused by the current pandemic. Further, this research helps us understand how businesses can help reduce the social consequences by preventing the disruptions and helping life normalize during this ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Originality/value

This is the first of its kind contribution offering a SLR of supply chain mitigation strategies during the COVID-19 pandemic identifying the focal themes in current literature and establishing the need for future venues of research studying the role of vaccines in supply chain mitigation strategies.

Adoption of innovative strategies to mitigate supply chain disruption: COVID-19 pandemic

COVID-19 pandemic outbreak caused supply chain (SC) disruption and threatened human life across the world, which could be mitigated through innovative strategies. Based on this scenario, this study examines the impact of COVID-19 on green practices, SC crisis mitigation strategies, smart technologies, and sustainable supply chain performance in the Pakistani manufacturing industry. Data was collected from Pakistani firms and employed structural equation modeling for testing hypotheses. The empirical results found that the COVID-19 pandemic is statistically related to green practices, SC crisis mitigation strategies, and smart technologies, while it harms sustainable supply chain performance. Moreover, green practices, SC crisis mitigation strategies, and smart technologies positively contribute to sustainable supply chain performance. The results of this study also confirmed the mediating role of green practices, SC crisis mitigation strategies, and smart technologies and moderating role organizational commitment in the context of a developing economy’s manufacturing industry. This study enhances awareness and understanding and contributes to the existing literature on verifying the link between COVID-19 pandemic and green practices, SC crisis mitigation strategies, and smart technologies to increase sustainable supply chain performance during a pandemic disruption in the Pakistani context. This study supports the managers of supply chain and manufacturing firms in adopting green practices and smart technologies. Also, it helps in the formation and successful implementation of SC crisis mitigation strategies during the crisis.

Assessment of challenges and problems in supply chain among retailers during COVID-19 epidemic through AHP-TOPSIS hybrid MCDM technique

Framework and objectives

COVID-19 epidemic has sparked concern and has elevated the need for therapeutic tools, health equipment's, and day-to-day necessities for healthcare workers' well-being. The goal of this study is to uncover the operational problems that suppliers encounter when it comes to offering effective services. The research also intends to offer an Industry 4.0 strategy for reducing COVID-19's effect. The problems are weighed and priority is assigned by multi-criteria decision making to identify the most essential parameter which impacts the suppliers.

Methods

A comprehensive literature assessment on the rampant eruption of COVID 19 and supply chain is conducted with the aid of literatures available on SCOPUS, Science Direct, and Google Scholar using appropriate keywords. To get further insights, certain pertinent and applicable industry reports and blogs are also used. Problems were analysed with AHP method and priority was assigned by technique for order performance by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS). Weights are calculated by AHP method and assigned to each criteria attribute.

Results

We recognized eleven key problems that serve as an operational obstacle in the retail industry and proposed the use of Industry 4.0 technology to address them. The contemporary study is accomplished by using hybrid combination of two Multi Criteria Estimators methods- Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). Further, the most significant problem comes out to be Maintenance of an appropriate balance among supply and demand followed by Lack of Viability.

Key findings

Prioritization of supply chain problems are arranged in descending order Maintenance of an appropriate balance among supply and demand ​> ​Lack of Viability ​> ​Absence of government funding ​> ​Lack of access ​> ​Absence of Confidence ​> ​Scarcity of work force ​> ​Lack of security and safety ​> ​Deficiency of surplus medical amenities ​> ​Consumer attitude ​> Absence of Supply Chain flexibility ​> ​Communication problems.

Conclusion

In order to combat the pandemic, Industry 4.0 can play a key role in lowering the effect of identified issues on retailers. For the successful administration of healthcare basics, trust and openness are required. To enhance services, suppliers, distributors and policy makers should make informed decisions during COVID-19 and other comparable events. Therefore, suggested guidelines and framework will offer upcoming directions for research in fields of pandemic check, business logistics management, and catastrophe administration. Balance in supply and demand is the most significant attribute as its percentage contribution is the maximum (27.52%) followed by Safety of employees (26.51%). Furthermore, the research then ranks these models on the basis of their attributes with the aid of TOPSIS. Among all these problems, Maintenance of an appropriate balance among supply and demand and lack of viability are identified as the prime most and common concern for retailers in supply chain management during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Greening the Artificial Intelligence for a Sustainable Planet: An Editorial Commentary

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the most popular and promising technologies of our time [...]

Antecedents for blockchain technology-enabled sustainable agriculture supply chain

Blockchain can solve the problems that the agriculture supply chain (ASC) is facing to achieve sustainable growth. In a nation like India, blockchain application in the supply chain is still new; therefore, supply chain players need a better understanding and awareness of blockchain through valuable insights. This article aims to study the mediating role of blockchain technology adoption (BLCT) for sustainable supply chain performance (SSCP). This study investigates the influence of numerous factors such as green and lean practices, supply chain integration, supply chain risk, performance expectancy, top management support, cost, internal and external environmental conditions, regulatory support, and innovation capability on BLCT adoption. A sample of 316 respondents from Indian ASC industries was collected, and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used. This study's outcomes show that green and lean practices, supply chain integration, supply chain risks, internal and external conditions, regulatory support, innovation capability, and cost positively influence BLCT adoption. Moreover, BLCT positively influences sustainable agriculture supply chain performance. This article is valuable for policymakers, managers, service providers, researchers, and academicians to understand the role of factors in influencing BLCT and BLCT's role in improving sustainable supply chain performance (SSCP).

Modelling resilient fashion retail supply chain strategies to mitigate the COVID-19 impact

Purpose

This paper aims to develop supply chain strategies for the fashion retail supply chain (FRSC), likely to be disrupted by the current pandemic (COVID-19) under physical and online retail stores. The resilient retail supply chain design is proposed under budget allocation and merchandise capacity constraints.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper utilises the theory of constraint (ToC) and goal programming (GP) to address the COVID-19 impact on FRSC. The budgetary and capacity constraints are formulated with a constraint optimisation model and tested with six different priorities to deal with the physical and online stores. Next, all priorities are developed under different FRSC business scenarios. The ToC-GP-based optimisation model is validated with one of the Indian fashion retail supply chains.

Findings

The proposed optimisation model presents the optimal retailing strategies for selling fashion goods over physical and online platforms. The multiple scenarios are presented for developing trade-offs among different strategies to maximise the retailer's merchandise performance. This paper also highlighted the strategic movement from high merchandise density stores to low merchandise density stores. This implies a reduction of sales targets and aspiration levels of both online and physical fashion stores.

Research limitations/implications

The proposed model is validated with one of the fashion retailers in India. Other nations or multiple fashion retailers might be considered for more generalisation of findings in the future.

Practical implications

This research helps fashion retail supply chain managers deal with consumer demand uncertainty over physical and online stores in pandemic times. Limitation: Other nations or multiple fashion retailers might be considered for more generalisation of findings in the future.

Originality/value

This is the first study that considered the impact of COVID-19 on the retail fashion supply chain. The effect of physical and online platforms is mainly discussed from consumer marketing perspectives, but an inventory and resilience perspective is missing in earlier studies. The role of merchandise planning is highlighted in this study.