Abstract
The growth of new cutting-edge technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) is proposed by the industry 4.0 concept. Despite the vast potential of IoT to be used in the circular economy, the adoption of IoT is still in its primary step. This study aims to identify the important barriers to the adoption of IoT in the circular economy in the manufacturing sector. To this end, a survey study was conducted to construct a framework for the evaluation of the IoT adoption barriers in the circular economy. Therefore, a novel method integrating the Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) and Combined Compromise Solution (CoCoSo) methods based on Pythagorean Fuzzy Sets (PFSs) was proposed. In this method, the SWARA model is used to estimate the significance degree or weighting degrees of the barriers, while the CoCoSo method is applied to ranking various organizations in the manufacturing sector under the identified barriers. To show the performance of the developed approach, a comparison analysis is performed of the selection of qualified organizations. The outcome of this study indicated that the developed approach was able to suggest more realistic performance under PFSs, hence providing a wide range of applications.