Towards Digital Lean Cyber-Physical Production Systems: Industry 4.0 Technologies as Enablers of Leaner Production

Lean production emerged as an alternative way of organizing and managing manufacturing operations in the 1990s, following the close examination and promotion of the Toyota Production System as a better way of working. More recently, the advent of Industry 4.0 and its associated Cyber-Physical Production Systems has materialised novel ways of optimizing production operations. Though it is generally agreed that manufacturers should not neglect one of the aforementioned approaches in favour of the other, there remains uncertainty as to how Industry 4.0 technologies should be integrated with existing lean production programmes. This paper presents an overview of both approaches, and provides an exploratory study that examines the integration of Lean and Industry 4.0 in practice.