Citation: Salas-Navarro, K.;
Serrano-Pájaro, P.; Ospina-Mateus,
H.; Zamora-Musa, R. Inventory
Models in a Sustainable Supply
Chain: A Bibliometric Analysis.
Sustainability 2022, 14, 6003. https://
doi.org/10.3390/su14106003
Academic Editors: Atour Taghipour
and Malek Masmoudi
Received: 15 March 2022
Accepted: 25 April 2022
Published: 15 May 2022
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sustainability
Review
Inventory Models in a Sustainable Supply Chain: A
Bibliometric Analysis
Katherinne Salas-Navarro
1,
* , Paula Serrano-Pájaro
1
, Holman Ospina-Mateus
2
and Ronald Zamora-Musa
3
1
Department of Productivity and Innovation, Universidad de la Costa, Barranquilla 080002, Colombia;
pserrano2@cuc.edu.co
2
Department of Industrial Engineering, Universidad Tecnológica de Bolívar, Cartagena 131001, Colombia;
hospina@utb.edu.co
3
Department of Industrial Engineering, Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia,
Barrancabermeja 687031, Colombia; ronald.zamora@campusucc.edu.co
* Correspondence: ksalas2@cuc.edu.co
Abstract: This paper presents a bibliometric analysis of inventory models in a sustainable supply
chain. The methodology contains reviewing previous research with a performance evaluation,
network analysis, and science mapping to identify the applications, trends, and future research topics.
Scientific mapping examines the periods and volumes of publications, authors, journals, countries,
regions, organizations, subject areas, and citation analyses. The dataset was obtained with the Scopus
database and analyzed using MS Excel and VOSviewer. The search equation identified 335 research
papers, which resulted in 131 significant manuscripts on the subject after being screened and filtered.
The most notable countries in developing research were Iran, India, China, the United States, Canada,
Taiwan, France, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, and Denmark. Saha, S., Ajay, S.Y., and Baboli,
A. were the most cited authors. The journals that publish the most research were Sustainability, the
Journal of Cleaner Production, and the International Journal of Production Economics. Some research
focuses on reducing carbon emissions and polluting agents applied in different industries in China,
Brazil, India, and others. The main findings were the number of industry sectors researching this
topic, increasing the number of publications, and promoting the proper use of resources within a
sustainable supply chain. There are many investigations of theoretical models that have applications
in real-life cases. There is also evidence of the high importance of promoting sustainable development.
The emissions regulations in a green supply chain applied to agricultural products have allowed for
more actions to achieve responsible production and consumption, as seen in applied research in the
pulp and paper industry.
Keywords: sustainable supply chain; inventory model; green supply chain; sustainable logistic
1. Introduction
The bibliometric analysis applied statistical methods to overview scientific production
related to a subject area, research fields, applications, and research opportunities [1,2].
Technology and increased customer expectations and demands have led to developing
solutions from inventory approaches to ensure customer responses. Some studies have
examined inventory models, which have allowed better results when executing the dif-
ferent processes in organizations [3]. The new technological era requires more significant
dynamics in inventory management to identify the timely and adequate availability of
goods and products. Additionally, the support of industries for green routes, sustainability,
reuse, and awareness of caring for the environment has increased, thus generating research
on inventory models aimed at Sustainable Supply Chains (SSC) [4]. Inventory models
applied in SSC allow for optimizing costs, improving marketing or production, making
good use of available resources, and considering sustainability and the environmental
impact [5].
Sustainability 2022, 14, 6003. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14106003 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability