Abstract
This paper seeks to examine the area of circular economy, providing an overview of the
development of data driven circular approaches in manufacturing, particularly Industry 4.0,
from the point of view of Reuse, Remanufacturing, Redistribution and Recycle. This paper
also aims to develop a working framework for future circular economy research.
The Design, methodological approach of this paper focuses on a comprehensive review
of literature covering over 51 research papers. These papers are analysed using pie charts and
bar charts to understand current trends in circular economy and circular economy related
research and future research directions in the field.
Findings show that research on circular economy has been steady and gradual with 2014
and 2015 having the most papers on the subject with 43% of the papers from engineering
related research. Research which links circular strategies and their application within Industry
4.0 to digital technologies is still a very new area of research and, as such, is an area for
further studies.
Although papers on Circular Economy and Circular Economy Approaches exists,
however, there are no papers that offer an overview of the development of circular approaches
within manufacturing. The contribution of this paper is to provide a summary of current
trends in circular economy research in manufacturing, within focus on Industry 4.0. A review
of this development has been provided in the form of illustrative charts and graphs that
identifies these trends. From this a framework for future circular economy research as it
relates to manufacturing was developed.