Enabling the Twin Transition of the SMEs: digital paradigms of Industry 4.0, Lean and Circular principles as enablers of SDGs 8, 9 and 12

This study has the aim to detect and analyse the cause and effect relationships in an Industry 5.0 framework, between the digital paradigms of Industry 4.0 (I4.0), enabled by Key Enabling Technologies (KETs) and the targets of three Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), permeated by Lean Manufacturing (LM) and Circular Economy (CE) principles. The SDGs in question belong to the ones linked to the Economical dimension, according to the division of the Stockholm Resilience Centre and they are number 8, “Decent Work and Economic Growth”, number 9 “Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure” and number 12, namely “Responsible Production and Consumption”, that will be called “SME SDGs” from now on. The current body of literature on the topic, investigated through a systematic literature review (SLR), presents very few quantitative analysis and an high rate of academics involvement, but a very low one of industrial players. In order to fill the identified research gaps, the work has been performed by applying a mathematically rigorous process, the Fuzzy version of the DEMATEL multicriteria method. In addition, the analysis has been conducted by exploiting the technological and commercial hands-on experience of production, logistic, marketing and IT managers of organizations that produce and/or commercialize 4.0 technologies for the SMEs of Piedmont and Valle d’Aosta. They have been selected from the Piedmont Digital Innovation Hub database dedicated to technology providers. They joined Canva applicative sessions articulated in two phases: a preliminary reasoning about the digital enabling power of the KET produced or commercialized by the vendor and the filling of the Fuzzy DEMATEL matrix, created by the author. The factors present in the matrix are twelve: seven digital paradigms of I4.0, the three selected SDGs, one factor related to the 9 R of the CE framework and one last criterion representing the Seven Wastes of LM. Applying the DEMATEL method, an Influential Relation Map (IRM) has been got, which is a graph that enlightens the cause-effect relationships between the previously listed factors. At the end, it was possible to formalize at a strategic level the effects on the selected targets achievement by an SME, resulting from investments on digital paradigms enhancement and LM and CE principles attention, by concluding that the enabling power of the 4.0 KETs is Twin, Digital&Green. Digital investments can support the Twin Transition of the SMEs.