Gerhard-Wilhelm Weber

Poznan University of Technology

Dear Colleagues, Circular economy (CE) is a key solution to dealing with resource crises, in terms of waste produced and the resources consumed. It reduces the need for raw materials by making better use of existing ones. There is a growing need in the CE for organizational culture to change toward sustainability. Supply chains can benefit from a circular economy, which requires a paradigm shift from conventional to sustainable practices. Due to this concern, CE integration has become one of the most critical strategies in developing sustainable supply chains. In order to contribute to the attainment of sustainability objectives in emerging economics, CE is committed to ensuring sustainable resource management strategies for more efficient resource utilization to preserve the environment, social conditions, and the economy. A sustainable circular economy (SCE), which combines a CE and sustainability, can contribute to energy recovery, resource efficiency, economic growth, sustained consumption, and circularity at the macro-level. Digitalisation and smart technologies can promote the transition to a SCE, while businesses can perform more efficient, effective, smart, inclusive, and sustainable operations by integrating smart enabling technologies into SCE. Getting organizations on board with Industry 4.0 will only be possible if they are motivated by a clear understanding of its strategic significance related to SCE. Smart sustainable circular economy (SSCE) is crucial for management to devote time and resources to knowledge management programs, training, and education. For SSCE to succeed, it is necessary to identify employees with the appropriate background for implementing advanced technologies. During the CE adaptation process to SSCE, organisations should also understand the importance of interfacing with humans and machines. There are different perspectives on the CE, which include, but are not limited to, the following: -Identifying sustainability criteria for CE in emerging economies; -Establishing sustainable operations in the context of Industry 4.0 and CE; -Role of smart supply chain in the circular economy; -CE application challenges in sustainable supply chains; -Application of CE and industry 4.0 driven technologies in the food supply chain; -Application of smart circularity practices in the sustainable supply chain management; -Optimizing sustainable supply chain models for CE framework; -CE and sustainable supply chain challenges; -CE strategies for net zero transition; -Advanced analytics ai/ml models for SSCE 4.0 development. Dr. Sadia Samar Ali Prof. Dr. Gerhard-Wilhelm Weber Dr. Erfan Babaee Tirkolaee Dr. Alireza Goli Guest Editors For more information: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/special_issues/2IQ27HQTJX

Dear Colleagues, Optimization plays an important role in several branches of engineering sciences. Optimization challenges are becoming increasingly complex, especially in supply chain planning; nowadays, traditional methods are not effective enough to solve complex optimization problems. New variants of meta-heuristic algorithms have recently emerged that primarily aim to combine innovative methods to better search for solutions. Many such algorithms have been inspired by nature; the most significant include the Keshtel Algorithm (KA), Red Deer Algorithm (RDA), and Gray Wolf Optimizer (GWO). Various optimization problems have also been proposed to find suitable, eligible, optimal solutions for sustainability. Furthermore, researchers and decision-makers have developed and widely employed meta-heuristic algorithms for various complex problems. In fact, it can be argued that in the future, almost all aspects of human daily life will be affected by this technology. Experts believe that meta-heuristic algorithms will soon be able to find the best possible solution for supply chains. This Special Issue, “Logistics and Operations Modelling and Optimization for Sustainable Supply Chain”, enables transparent and rapid communication of research highlighting the role of optimization in multidisciplinary areas across mathematical programming and optimization. The emphasis is on the impact, depth, and originality of new concepts, methods, and observations with respect to novel methods such as meta-heuristic algorithms. This Special Issue seeks to clarify how optimization approaches can be evaluated and implemented in sustainable supply chains. We welcome submissions highlighting new solutions to sustainable supply chain problems from a broad range of perspectives, which may include, but are not limited to, the following: -Sustainable supply chain network design using approximate optimization methods; -Sustainable Production and distribution using novel meta-heuristic algorithms; -Transportation optimization using novel meta-heuristic algorithms; -Supply chain planning using new emerged meta-heuristic algorithms; -Simulation-based optimization for sustainable supply chain planning; -Application of meta-heuristics in developing machine learning for sustainable supply chain planning; -Application of meta-heuristics in improving the neural networks for sustainable supply chain planning; -Application of meta-heuristics in developing clustering methods for sustainable supply chain planning; -Logistic network design using data-driven; Guest Editors Prof. Dr. Gerhard-Wilhelm Weber Dr. Alireza Goli Dr. Erfan Babaee Tirkolaee For further information, please see: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability/special_issues/logistics_operations

Discussions of the resiliency, sustainability, and agility of supply chains are important in the research and management of supply chains in these difficult times, considering the ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 [1]. Ivanov [2] proposed that a viable supply chain is characterized by resiliency, sustainability, and agility in its network design. Resiliency is essential because disruption and demand fluctuations are forced upon SCs, and the effects of these for many managerial supply chains are unknown. In addition, applying novel technology in the supply chain, such as blockchain, Internet-of-Things (IoT), and artificial intelligence (AI) as agility tools can assist and enable the transition to lean production. We, as researchers, should propose methods using a mathematical modeling approach to improve the current situation and mitigate the crisis. There is great fluctuation of demand, and given that customers are preferentially shifting to e-commerce, many supply chains that lack e-commerce are destined to fail. In addition to resiliency and agility, we should pay more attention to the sustainability and greenness of a supply chain in terms of its network design or production planning. In the strategic, tactical, and operational decisions, we should consider the environmental impact, energy consumption, and social impact [3,4]. Carbon emissions, carbon trading, and waste management are effective solutions to decrease the environmental impact. Using renewable and clean energy is one strategy to apply viable management [5]. In this complex situation, given the pressure on people, we have to retain and maintain human resources that represent the best solution to ensure the welfare and suitability of the supply chain. In addition, applying new technologies such as blockchain technology and running smart contracts require modeling to demonstrate the advantages of the new technology [7-9]. This Special Issue (SI) aims to investigate management of resiliency and sustainability in supply chains. We are thus seeking contributions from authors presenting novel mathematical models toward ensuring resiliency, sustainability, and agility in supply chains. For further information, please see: https://www.springer.com/journal/11356/updates/20220644