Integrating industrial engineering and environmental sustainability for a sustainable competitive advantage in South Africa

Abstract

Environmental sustainability (ES) remains increasingly relevant to our world and more challenging for developing countries to achieve. At the same time, companies try to remain competitive and often turn to sustainable solutions for a competitive advantage. Concurrently, the field of Industrial Engineering (IE) has received growing interest in all parts of the world, in various sectors, since its inception during the first industrial revolution. The specialised discipline of IE has knowledge that yields productivity gains;yet no taxonomy model gives clear recognition or associations with environmental sustainability. The knowledge poolsof IE and ES currently lack a formalised, visible classification. This disparate leaves developing countries unable to successfully adopt environmental sustainability in order to ensure a sustainable competitive advantage. South Africa is no exception to this.This study strives to investigate IE knowledge to identify ways in which to enhance environmental sustainability in South Africa, using a sustainable competitive advantage. The core focus identifies various strategies, theories, and methods and practices (knowledge components) that are later linked with the strategic, tactical and operational business execution levels. It also investigates transdisciplinary knowledge creation, arguing that IE is capable of producing such knowledge. A staged Design Science Research (DSR) paradigm is followed and contextualised by the research onion using four distinct phases. The research design begins with a Systematic Literature Review and thematic analysis to explore IE knowledge and environmental sustainability as part of the rigour cycle of DSR. In the second phase, the relevance cycle involves interviewing South African industrial engineers and environmental sustainability managers to identify knowledge components for a sustainable competitive advantage, which are applied in industry and academia. The last two phases entail the design and validation of a Pyramid Water Fountain model that ensures a sustainable competitive advantage. The Abstract, Contextualise and Design (ACD) methodology is coined as a transdisciplinary design methodology used to create the artefact. The validation entailed a confirmatory focus group. These findings can thus be generalised to other developing countries by drawing on knowledge from the IE and environmental sustainability domains within transdisciplinary knowledge contexts. This research demonstrates transdisciplinarity and systemic environmental problem-solving, as well as sustainable competitive advantages that are inspired by the notions of integrating knowledge from IE and ES.