Macroeconomics

Software system

Lean laboratory

Engineering

Ecology

Biology

Sustainability

Industry 4.0

Software construction

Embedded system

Economics

Computer science

Manufacturing engineering

Business

Mechanical engineering

Software

Process management

Work (physics)

Productivity

Operations management

Lean project management

Industrial organization

Software engineering

Programming language

Lean software development

Engineering management

Lean manufacturing

Software deployment

International Journal of Production Research

Industry 4.0 is increasingly being promoted as the key to improving productivity, promoting economic growth and ensuring the sustainability of manufacturing companies. On the other hand, many companies have already partially or fully implemented principles and tools from the Lean management approach, which is also aimed at improving productivity. While the two approaches use very different strategies, they share some common principles. The objective of this article is to highlight the links between the principles and tools proposed by Industry 4.0 and those proposed by the Lean management approach, with a particular focus on how some of Industry 4.0's technologies are improving the implementation of Lean principles, depending on the technologies’ capability levels. As such, this study aims to provide a characterisation of the impacts of Industry 4.0 technologies on Lean principles according to targeted capability levels. The results obtained show strong support for Industry 4.0 technologies for Just-in-time and Jidoka, but little or no support for waste reduction and People and Team work. There is, therefore, a clear need to pursue the deployment of Lean management while improving certain Lean principles using Industry 4.0 technologies.

Impacts of Industry 4.0 technologies on Lean principles