Lean manufacturing and Industry 4.0 combinative application: Practices and perceived benefits

Abstract This paper investigates the industry practices regarding the combinative use of Industry 4.0 and lean tools in the manufacturing sector. Following review of the literature, a questionnaire survey was distributed among manufacturing professionals in organizations which have already adopted Industry 4.0 technology and lean manufacturing, with the aim to highlight the popular combinations of tools as seen in manufacturing practice and capture the perceived level of their contribution to operational performance. The survey results show that Real time data, IoT for data exchange, big data analytics, Cyber –Physical Systems (CPS), predictive algorithms and robots are among the most popular I4.0 applications used to support lean attributes like continuous flow, Kanban, standardised work, TPM and continuous improvement. It also emerges that although the beneficial impact of lean production across the respondents’ organizations is widely accepted, the perceived impact of Industry 4.0 tools is not as clear.