Lean 4.0 - A conceptual conjunction of lean management and Industry 4.0

Applying lean can boost a firm’s performance significantly by focusing on value-adding activities. Additionally, Industry 4.0 is regarded as another promising trend in industry. Combining these developments resulted in terms like "lean 4.0". However, the existing literature lacks a comprehensive and detailed conjunction of both paradigms. This paper builds upon this research gap with a twofold aim: Firstly, the target is to build upon existing groundwork to conclude whether lean management and Industry 4.0 can complement each other. Secondly, this work considers how Industry 4.0 can support specific lean methods. This is exemplified by an electric drives production use case.