The integration in production planning, scheduling, maintenance and quality has gained much attention from researchers in recent years. These areas are usually treated independently, which yielded independent models for each function. It is widely believed that these separate models will provide suboptimal solutions, due to the fact that they are interrelated. Proper understanding of this dependency will open a new avenue for more integrated models, and result in significant savings in operational cost and improved efficiency for any production system. This paper reviews the literature on models addressing different aspects of integration in these areas. This integration is treated in two different ways in the literature. The first way is to present models where a model is considered for one function taking into account the other. These models are referred to as interrelated models. The second way is to simultaneously model two or more elements of the production system. These models are referred to as integrated models. The objective of this paper is to review research in both interrelated and integrated modelling of production planning, scheduling, maintenance and quality to identify possible future directions.

Plastic and petrochemical industries are lagging behind in terms of environmental sustainability performance because of the nature of these industries. Although plastic and petrochemical industries have adopted lean manufacturing and/or Industry 4.0 technologies, more efforts are needed to enhance sustainable development. The purpose of this study is to explore the integrated impact of Industry 4.0 technologies and lean manufacturing on the sustainability performance of plastic and petrochemical industries in Saudi Arabia. Moreover, it investigates the casual relationship between Industry 4.0 technologies and sustainability performance as well as the direct linkage between Industry 4.0 and lean manufacturing. A questionnaire is used as the primary instrument for collecting data from 112 plastic and petrochemical organizations. A hypothesized relationship is formulated and then analyzed using the structural equation modeling (SEM) approach. The outcome of the analysis shows that Industry 4.0 and lean manufacturing have a positive impact on sustainability performance. The study also presents a list of valid constructs for Industry 4.0 technologies, lean manufacturing, and sustainability performance. Furthermore, the study shows that the plastic and petrochemical industries in Saudi Arabia acknowledge and recognize the contribution of Industry 4.0 technologies and lean manufacturing principles to the protection of the environment as a dimension of sustainability performance.

The need for resilience and an agile waste management system in Saudi Arabia is vital to control safely the rapid growth of its municipal solid waste (MSW) with minimal environment toll. Similarly, the domestic energy production in Saudi Arabia is thriving and putting a tremendous pressure on its huge reserves of fossil oil. Waste to energy (WTE) plants provides a golden opportunity for Saudi Arabia; however, both challenges (MSW mitigation and energy production) are usually looked at in isolation. This paper at first explores the potential of expanding the WTE energy production in the eastern province in Saudi Arabia under two scenarios (complete mass burn with and without recycling). Secondly, this study analyzes the effect of 3Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) practices implementation in a residential camp (11,000 population) to influence the behavior of the camp’s citizens to reduce their average waste (kg/capita). The results of the 3R-WTE framework show a potential may reach 254 Megawatt (MW) of electricity by year 2030. The 3R system implementation in the camp reduced MSW production from 5,625 tons to 3000 tons of household waste every year, which is considered lower than what the surrounding communities to be produced in the same area.

The objective of this paper is to provide a decision support tool that helps in prioritizing enterprise resource planning (ERP) modules’ implementation. The literature shows high risks of failure during the ERP implementation in construction in­dustry. This research provides a systematic approach to have a successful ERP implementation in the construction industry. The provided approach of this research helps construction companies worldwide and specifically Saudi Arabia to better implement ERP projects. A case study approach is conducted with experts in ERP implementation at construction field in order to rank different ERP modules. This research develop a four step methodology to sequence the ERP module implementation. The first step defines the most common ERP modules in the construction industry. The second step defines the expected benefits of ERP implementation. The third step will define the importance index (I). Finally, the fourth step rank the ERP modules based on the global index that combines the criteria index and module index. The main findings of this research provided a comprehensive list of thirteen ERP modules ranked according to the Saudi construction industry. Out of thirteen modules, the top ranked mod­ules were inventory control and logistics, procurement, and project finance and accounting.