The Impact of Industry 4.0 in Agricultural Supply Chains

The academic study addresses the use of technology management in farm to fork processes. This is from agricultural operations and supply chains to, distribution, retail, consumer purchasing and use. The ongoing importance of this phenomenon occurs on many levels. Investigations of end-to-end traceability in the food supply chain facilitates and enhances the improvement of factors such as food security. There is public awareness of social economic issues such as food inflation and the increased demands of growing populations, along with regulatory requirements. Therefore using information technology management enables agricultural producers and suppliers to better meet consumer demands and choice as well as helping to address global and political food concerns.

The ultimate aim is to identify how agricultural supply chains will be transformed due to the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0) and to establish an understanding of the associated benefits and challenges of such changes. Industry 4.0 embraces the use of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing, cognitive computing, artificial intelligence and big data. Therefore the next generation farming practices entail changes to existing agricultural, operational and supply chain models. This includes smart farms, agricultural technology, precision farming and digital farming. The evolution of new practices encounters resistance due to the adoption of such a paradigm, especially from small and medium sized farms.

The project will use a mixture of methodological approaches. First, a literature review analysis will be conducted to review existing research about the implications, challenges, benefits, and applications of Industry 4.0 in agricultural supply chains. Based on the literature review analysis, a conceptual framework will be developed for further empirical testing.

Salient problems and hence the solutions to the implementation of agricultural food channels and emergent technology infrastructure are examined. Academically, key areas of supply chain development may be identified. However, where and if circumstances indicate, attempts are made to resolve insufficient development of solutions to occurring implementation problems. Improvements will be sought in knowledge transfer areas between the food industry and academic perspectives. This may be by researching both the short-term and the long-term views of the industrial development and identified academic theoretical understanding.

Highlighting the difficulties, the appropriate use of information technology can create aims to solve the given industry problems. This can be from customer experience and expectation, how customer knowledge is influenced with pain / gain conflict to where they eventually interact. The formulation of problems enables food producers to cope with technological change, customer experience and motivation.

Therefore, managerial challenges and focus are explored which includes the possibilities and the practicalities of technological implementation regarding decisions concerning new technology. The appropriate use of technology if the management and the employees do not adequately have the know-how. Also, actions taken if the technology does not work. Therefore, where academic and industrial phenomenal divide occurs, both sides learn from different worldviews.

By addressing the problems the research would demonstrate how agricultural, producer, retailer and customer satisfaction may be continually improved because of ever increasing technological demands.