Facing the challenges of the future through the synergetic adoption of Industry 4.0 and Lean manufacturing

The industrial world is undergoing a historical change, so profound as to be called the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In this context, Industry 4.0 has emerged as one of the most discussed concepts that involves not only the technological aspect, but also demands consistent and conscious organizational efforts. Indeed, the success of Industry 4.0 requires to overcome several hindrances and challenges in order to make a factory smart by applying advanced information and communication systems aiming to improve transparency through the digital linkage of each element involved in the production. Additionally, lean manufacturing has been explored in the industrial setting, considering the strict integration of humans in the manufacturing process, a continuous improvement and focus on value-adding activities. However, the existing studies lacks a comprehensive and detailed conjunction of both domains. This paper bridges the gap between the two paradigms and illustrates the synergy cross the consolidated lean approach and Industry 4.0 technologies. The research, builds upon scientific literature review followed by practical investigation, explores the challenges that a lean company will face in its upgrade process to fulfill the requirements of Industry 4.0. The findings, made it possible to identify exactly which aspects of Industry 4.0 contribute towards respective dimensions of lean manufacturing and to introduce some considerations on how lean manufacturing can instead help Industry 4.0 practices. In particular, this article is met the common traits between these two realms in the emphasis on people involvement, distributed knowledge in the field, process orientation, attention to data analysis as a basis for improvement and customer-centric vision.