The integration of technologies Industry 4.0 technology and Lean Manufacturing: A systematic literature review

Purpose – Since the development of Lean Manufacturing (LM) in the last century, industry performance has improved. In 2011, when Germany first used the term Industry 4.0 to refer to the fourth industrial revolution, many changes in the way things are done have been discussed and applied. Industry 4.0 involves new technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT). However, the LM originally does not consider the possibilities of these new information technologies and current research highlights the need for studies on the applications of industry 4.0 technologies in LM environments. Thus, this research aims to identify, select, evaluate, and synthesize the relevant evidence available on the literature around the integration of Industry 4.0 technologies and LM.

Design/methodology/approach – The research applied the method of systematic literature review on 107 articles, which were refined by this method.

Findings – The creation of value and increase in the company’s profit occurs through I4.0 technologies, such as the Internet of Things, Cyber Physical System, use of the Cloud, quality (big) data, Robotics, among others, which provide real-time capability, decentralization, modularity, interoperability, service orientation, and virtualization. Visualizing thus, a support of the industry 4.0 concept to LM and vice versa, where the technologies related to this concept allow improving the flow of information exchanged, guaranteeing the interconnection of machines, things and people.

Research limitations/implication – Some important research may not have appeared in the search due to limitations of the systematic literature review method.

Practical implications – The findings point insights directions for future research and provide practitioners with insights into the integration of Industry 4.0 technologies and with LM.

Originality/value – The literature lacks articles that discuss the relationship of Industry 4.0 technologies with Lean Manufacturing.

Paper type: Literature review

Lean Manufacturing, Industry 4.0, Lean 4.0