A Practical Variation of Industry 4.0 and Lean Management

Abstract

Applying lean will dramatically improve a company's efficiency by focusing on value-adding activities. Manufacturing 4.0 is also considered to be another positive development in manufacturing. The synthesis of these advances led to words such as "lean 4.0". However, an extensive and detailed combination of both paradigms is lacking in the existing literature. This paper builds on this research gap with a twofold objective: First, to draw on established groundwork to infer that lean management (LM) and Industry 4.0 (I4.0) can complement one another. Second, this study takes into account how I4.0 will help different lean methods. This is exemplified by a use case for the manufacture of electric drives. This paper explores various viewpoints for a LM / I4.0 conjunction. In summary, the authors conclude on a conceptual level, that LM and I4.0 complement each other. Building on that idea, this paper explains how eight lean approaches can be assisted by different I4.0 resources.