Supply Chain Management 5.0 – How to Conceptualize Network Cascading and Implementation of Human-centric Operations

The concept of human-centric manufacturing operations as “Industry 5.0” with the focus of a win-win-situation for enhanced corporate value and manufacturing performance and human well-being is taking hold in research and operations management. Yet, the elaborations, studies and insights in this field are mainly dedicated to specific processes, companies or “focal points” of interest, even when transferred into neighboring fields as for example “Logistics 5.0” or “Warehousing 5.0”. Therefore, this paper is addressing the gap of enlarging the perspective towards an overarching supply chain perspective regarding human-centric, resilient and sustainable operations within all processes and actors upstream and downstream. Analytical lenses in this regard are proposed in order to enable comprehensive insights from a supply chain view with regard to human centricity. Furthermore, a Supply Chain 5.0 framework is proposed to navigate the relevant elements and impacts. Specifically, the potential implementation logics of “dissemination” versus “cascading” are outlined as elements for safely establishing that human-centric concepts remain not only island solutions in global supply chain operations.