The cement industry is highly energy-intensive, consuming approximately 7% of global industrial energy consumption each year. Improving production technology is a good strategy to reduce the energy needs of a cement plant. The market offers a wide variety of alternative solutions; besides, the literature already provides reviews of opportunities to improve energy efficiency in a cement plant. However, the technology is constantly developing, so the available alternatives may change within a few years. To keep the knowledge updated, investigating the current attractiveness of each solution is pivotal to analyze real companies. This article aims at describing the recent application in the Italian cement industry and the future perspectives of technologies. A sample of plant was investigated through the analysis of mandatory energy audit considering the type of interventions they have recently implemented, or they intend to implement. The outcome is a descriptive analysis, useful for companies willing to improve their sustainability. Results prove that solutions to reduce the energy consumption of auxiliary systems such as compressors, engines, and pumps are currently the most attractive opportunities. Moreover, the results prove that consulting sector experts enables the collection of updated ideas for improving technologies, thus giving valuable inputs to the scientific research.

Logistics is a vital activity for the economic growth of an organization as it manages the flow of materials and information within, into, and out of the organization, as well as reverse flow. Like many other industrial processes, logistics has also been impacted by the rise of Industry 4.0 technologies, which has highlighted the significance of Logistics 4.0. However, Logistics 4.0 is mainly focused on economic benefits, while overlooking environmental and social concerns. To address this, a method is proposed that takes into account the three goals of sustainable development when selecting the best technology for internal material handling activities. Firstly, a comprehensive literature review was conducted to examine the application of 4.0 technologies in logistics processes and their impact on economic, environmental, and social sustainability. Secondly, based on the findings of the review, a three-level analytic hierarchy process was proposed to identify the optimal 4.0 technology for internal logistics. To demonstrate the practicality of the proposed method, it was tested on three companies. The results showed that additive manufacturing, exoskeletons, and collaborative robots are the most suitable options for achieving sustainable development goals within Logistics 4.0.

Geosynthetics are extensively utilized to improve the stability of geotechnical structures and slopes in urban areas. Among all existing geosynthetics, geotextiles are widely used to reinforce unstable slopes due to their capabilities in facilitating reinforcement and drainage. To reduce settlement and increase the bearing capacity and slope stability, the classical use of geotextiles in embankments has been suggested. However, several catastrophic events have been reported, including failures in slopes in the absence of geotextiles. Many researchers have studied the stability of geotextile-reinforced slopes (GRSs) by employing different methods (analytical models, numerical simulation, etc.). The presence of source-to-source uncertainty in the gathered data increases the complexity of evaluating the failure risk in GRSs since the uncertainty varies among them. Consequently, developing a sound methodology is necessary to alleviate the risk complexity. Our study sought to develop an advanced risk-based maintenance (RBM) methodology for prioritizing maintenance operations by addressing fluctuations that accompany event data. For this purpose, a hierarchical Bayesian approach (HBA) was applied to estimate the failure probabilities of GRSs. Using Markov chain Monte Carlo simulations of likelihood function and prior distribution, the HBA can incorporate the aforementioned uncertainties. The proposed method can be exploited by urban designers, asset managers, and policymakers to predict the mean time to failures, thus directly avoiding unnecessary maintenance and safety consequences. To demonstrate the application of the proposed methodology, the performance of nine reinforced slopes was considered. The results indicate that the average failure probability of the system in an hour is $2.8\times {10}^{-5}$ during its lifespan, which shows that the proposed evaluation method is more realistic than the traditional methods.

Maturity models (MMs) are strategic tools used to assess and improve the current state of processes, objects, or people, with the goal of achieving continuous performance enhancement. While MMs are applied in various fields, their scope, design, and application criteria within Supply Chain Management and Logistics (SCML) lack comprehensive studies. This article aims to address this gap through a systematic literature review. The review analyzes 137 relevant articles using both bibliometric and content analysis techniques. The bibliometric analysis identifies major contributions, popular journals, and the classification and evolution of key keywords. The content analysis focuses on critical criteria related to the scope, design, and application of MMs. The findings reveal a growing emphasis on models assessing Industry 4.0 readiness and sustainability principles. However, several gaps are identified, including limited attention to optimizing and integrating logistic processes, underutilized and unvalidated MMs, and the absence of comprehensive improvement guidelines. Based on these trends and research gaps, this study proposes five recommendations for future developments that benefit both academics and practitioners. These recommendations aim to address the identified limitations and provide guidance for comprehensive and effective improvement strategies.

The glass industry is highly energy-intensive, consuming approximately 500–700 million GJ each year. Replacing inefficient equipment with better-performing equipment is a good strategy to reduce the energy consumption of a glass plant. Since there are many alternative solutions, the choice of which technological improvement to implement is usually difficult. Therefore, a review of solutions to reduce energy consumption in a glass plant is pivotal. The literature offers similar studies, but they are not sufficiently up-to-date and do not represent the actual state of the art, which should be updated. Thus, this paper aims to provide an updated list of alternative solutions, clustering them into different categories (e.g., the process stage). Moreover, this paper investigates the current applicability of energy-saving solutions in Italy. Specifically, a sample of 103 Italian companies is considered and the type of interventions that the companies recently implemented or that they intend to adopt is analyzed. Quantitative statistical and economic analyses were conducted to highlight the most popular solutions and determine their cost-effectiveness. The results show that most interventions consist of replacing machinery with more efficient ones, mainly in auxiliary systems (132 out of 426). The outcome of this paper could represent a guide to select energy-saving solutions.