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Although Lean manufacturing techniques are not yet in place in every shop floor production, the so-called Smart Factory with the very promising German-coined label “Industry 4.0” is already making its tour. While the Toyota Production System (TPS) has shown to be the most performant manufacturing system, the Industry 4.0 initiative is still in the scoping phase with the demanding goal to become a highly integrated cyber production system. The partial and often limited knowledge about Lean production leads to distorted ideas that the two approaches are incompatible. In order to eradicate wrong statements, this paper tries to explain what Lean really is and how it has to be considered in the context of the Industry 4.0 initiative. Further, it discusses the existing contradiction within the Industry 4.0 goals regarding manufacturing performance and break-even point.
Rüttimann et al. (Fri,) studied this question.