Industry 5.0 heralds the transition to a sustainable, human-centric and resilient European industry. The globalisation and disaggregation of enterprises since the late twentieth century have led to supply chains becoming long, cross-border and transport-intensive. This paper examines three specific cases of companies that have facilitated near sourcing and moved parts of their production process down the supply chain in preparation for an Industry 5.0 compliant supply chain. Upon evaluating the hypothesis that Industry 5.0 will enable shorter and more agile manufacturing networks, our results confirm its validity in the three cases examined. Drivers for I5.0 implementation are presented and discussed. Important drivers were economic profit, sustainability and improved work environment. I5.0 can facilitate new competencies and skills for humans working in human–machine systems. Some examples of these are provided. Our findings show that combining near sourcing and shorter supply chain strategies with I5.0 values provides for more sustainable, human-centric and resilient production.