Cyber-Physical Visual Management Systems in the Digital Lean Manufacturing World

The importance of Visual Management (or “Mieruka” as it is called in Japanese) has been largely demonstrated over the last few years, especially when it comes to the creation and management of data-rich environments for effective and efficient data-driven decision-making, such as digital lean smart factories. Although the different functions of visual systems are already known by the scientific community, further analysis of the capabilities and benefits provided by these tools, especially when enhanced with modern digital technologies, has yet to be provided. Therefore, this paper aims to frame a list of capabilities of the current physical visual systems, and their cyber/digital equivalents, according to a reference framework called the “7Is”, which was extracted from a review of the current literature available. This may serve as a valid common reference for future research on this topic.