Sustainability decision support system based on collaborative control theory

Industries nowadays have more insight into corporate environmental, social and economic sustainability than ever before. Sustainability issues in various industries are all about choices – finding ways to be more strategic and reducing waste and energy, while benefiting the bottom line. Because of the complexity of sustainability decisions and strategies, these insights call for applying advanced control techniques. In this article we review the concepts of sustainability and its practical issues, specifically focusing on the issues of supply networks. Sustainability issues are usually complex because beyond their inherent challenges, there are conflicts among stakeholders within organizations and between organizations; hence, more useful methods are required for effective solutions. We consider Decision Support Systems (DSSs) to help optimize solutions related with sustainability issues, and review their concepts and usefulness based on previous work. We also suggest strategies applying the Collaborative Control Theory (CCT) principles to augment DSS by a new Sustainability – Decision Support Protocol (S-DSP) in order to overcome certain weaknesses. To model and illustrate the benefit of S-DSP as a control protocol, two practical supply delivery/production problems are analyzed. The results highlight how better collaborative solutions can be achieved to maximize the sustainability of supply networks. It is envisioned that sustainability decision support by such cyber-supported collaboration protocols will contribute to overcome the emerging challenges of sustainability planning and control.