Enhancing Concrete Supply Chain Efficiency in Civil Engineering through Digital Transformation: A Comprehensive Review

The rapid advancement and adoption of digital technologies as part of Industry 4.0 have enabled the concrete supply chain in civil engineering to be managed more efficiently, ultimately enhancing the performance of construction projects. This paper focuses on the digitalization of the concrete supply chain, a trend that refers to the evolution towards a smarter model involving digital technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), big data analytics, cloud computing, and blockchain. These technologies increase and enhance the ability to optimize planning, sourcing, and procurement strategies in the concrete industry, leading to improved efficiency, sustainability, and cost-effectiveness in civil engineering projects. Given the relevance of this topic to the scientific community, this paper aims to investigate the main discussion themes related to the digital transformation of the concrete supply chain using a comprehensive review of existing literature and case studies. Incorporating a meta-analytic framework, this review meticulously synthesizes and categorizes significant scholarly contributions, focusing on the potential benefits, challenges, and future prospects of digitalization in the concrete industry, including its impact on inventory turnover rate, transport vehicle utilization, quality qualification rate, information sharing rate, and energy consumption or emission intensity. Results highlight the main issues regarding the digital transformation of the concrete supply chain. The findings also reveal promising future research avenues, such as the development of industry-specific frameworks and best practices for digital technology implementation, addressing interoperability and standardization issues, and exploring innovative solutions to overcome the identified challenges.