Sustainable Implementation Success Factors of AGVs in the Brazilian Industry Supply Chain Management

The management of the supply chain (SC) is crucial for industrial performance. Any shortage of raw materials, intermediate items or finished products for customers leads to bottlenecks in production processes, hampering market competitiveness. Recently, several aspects, such as the spread of automation and the continuous search for cost reduction, as well as increasing labor costs, have led to the use of Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) in SCs. AGVs provide efficiency gains, increase worker safety and minimize energy costs. In addition, they strengthen the sustainability tripod based on the economic, social and environmental dimensions. However, most SCs in the Brazilian industry are still inefficient in these dimensions. Currently, forklifts are heavily used in warehousing operations, resulting in idle employees when there is a production shortfall and pollution produced by their engines. Thus, in this context, there is a growing demand for research on the application of AGVs in Brazilian companies. This paper presents the main implementation success factors (ISFs) of AGVs based on a systemic review of the literature and proposes a framework to explore, in future stages, the interrelationships between sustainable implementation success factors (ISFs) of AGVs in the Brazilian context through structural equation modeling (SEM). (C) 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.