These last years have been challenging for the furniture Italian companies, since they have faced many critical issues and complexities, which have threatened their competitiveness. Intensifying global competition coming from emerging countries, increasing demand for low-cost items, unexpected economic and political uncertainties have determined an increase of raw material, labor, and energy costs, as well as a reduction of international market shares. Furthermore, great difficulties in the procurement of raw materials (e.g., woods, leather, fabrics, glass, polymers, and the highest-quality metals), also due to the congestions of logistics channels and international ports, have put pressure on their supply chains and their ability to maintain effective and efficient operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Recent studies have also shown that the Italian furniture industry is still late in the adoption of circular economy (CE) strategies (Barbaritano et al. 2019), even though this is considered as one of major competitive success features. Furniture wastes represent a huge economic and environmental problem. In 2017, 10.78 million tons of wastes were discarded in EU Member States, the majority of which (80-90%) is destined for either landfill or incineration, with a recycling rate lower than 10%, according to the Report 2017 on the Circular Economy Opportunities in the Furniture Sector, published by the European Environment Bureau (EEB, 2017). However, which barriers and obstacles companies are encountering for the circular transition of their supply chains is still not clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To address all these challenges, companies in the furniture sector should be able to develop and improve the transformative capabilities of their supply chains, evolve towards more open and dynamic states, to govern multiple sources of complexity, and to adopt structures, business models, management approaches, and AI digital tools, properly designed to increase circular and resilient performance. This project focuses on these issues.
In particular, the project will consists of the following 5 work-packages that will be collaboratively carried out by project partners:<\/p>\n\n\n\n