Track: Operations Management

Abstract

Growing population along with technological advancement to pace the production speed like never before has raised alarming concerns and attracted attention globally. Circular Economy, a fairly new concept has emerged to address such issues by proposing a closed loop system in contrast to a linear system. While the concept of Circular Economy presents a great potential, there yet remain a challenge for its adaptation in the existing manufacturing sector, especially at SMEs level. Many new techniques, methods and models are being developed, many of which require a complete change in the existing system, which not only have capital requirements but also upskilling labour. For SMEs, it is challenging to have such transition due to higher capital and skills requirements. This research explores the possibility to combine the existing concept of Lean with Circular Economy for speedy and easy adaptation of Circular Economy principles within the manufacturing sector, especially at SMEs level. A novel conceptually developed framework is proposed to merge the vitality of Lean and Circular Economy.