Abstract
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.
Highlights
The term Industry 4.0 has been coined at the 2011 Hannover Fair, a concept better known as the “Smart Factory”
Industry 4.0 will not materialize as a revolution, but in pieces which have to be integrated into the comprehensive Lean theory framework
The presently experienced non-focused activism is likely to fail to meet the high expectations set into Industry 4.0 due to a lack of a clear definition and unclear understanding of manufacturing performance laws and it represents an unrealistic goal at this point in time
Summary
The term Industry 4.0 has been coined at the 2011 Hannover Fair, a concept better known as the “Smart Factory”. The third industrial revolution is generally linked to the computer and the possibility of data processing for computer integrated manufacturing (CIM), leading to the present era of information technology. These commonly used definitions of industrial revolutions were made retrospectively, i.e. are ex-post rationalizations. The Industry 4.0 concept is not a technical revolution linked to a scientific break-through discovery, worse, it does even not exist yet It represents a politically established target for the producing industry—or vision if you will, intending to create an omnipotent cyber system, integrating different socio-techno-economic functions to allow fully automated production, integrated with the internet of things (IOT). The paper intends to show that industry 4.0 will not make Lean obsolete, but that both manufacturing systems will generate a mutual dependency and have their specific domain of application regarding product variability and production volume
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