Industry 4.0 Concepts and Lean Methods Mitigating Traditional Losses in Engineer-to-Order Manufacturing with Subsequent Assembly On-Site: A Framework

Engineer-to-Order companies design and manufacture complex products based on specific customer requirements. Their project-driven processes and non-repetitive production causes various inefficiencies, which lead to productivity losses. Conventional approaches such as Lean Manufacturing and Lean Construction are limited in mitigating these losses due to their challenging implementation in the Engineer-to-Order environment. New concepts and technologies from Industry 4.0 have the potential to mitigate these losses through digitizing processes but are little researched in the Engineer-to-Order industry. This article classifies traditional losses from Engineer-to-Order manufacturing companies and through literature review identifies several Lean as well as Industry 4.0 methods that have the potential to mitigate these losses. The results are presented in a framework which can be used to develop a Lean and Industry 4.0 assessment tool for companies supporting the implementation of these concepts to mitigate the presented loss categories. Further research should focus on validating the framework with empirical data.