Barriers in sustainable industry 4.0: a case study of the footwear industry

Industry 4.0 (I4.0) has a great perspective in the reshaping the industry as it creates a working environment of integrated productivity between workers and machines. However, the adoption of I4.0 in developing countries like India needs deliberation in the perception of sustainability. This paper aims to identify sustainable I4.0 barriers and evaluates interrelationship amongst the barriers. Twenty barriers to sustainable I4.0 are determined from the literature review. Expert’s opinions are taken to finalise the identified barriers. Data are collected from Indian footwear industries and have been further analysed using the Fuzzy-DEMATEL approach. The results show that ‘Lack of new organizational policy’, ‘Lack of customer feedback and cooperation towards I4.0 and sustainable practices,’ and ‘Lack of infrastructure’ are the most significant barriers. The study guides the industries of developing economies to formulate an effective strategy for the adoption of I4.0. The future scope of the survey includes an extension to other emerging economies to improve the reliability and validation.