A Systematic Literature Review on Lean, Industry 4.0, and Digital Factory

Today, the growing demand for personalised products is highly challenging for enterprises in terms of productivity and efficiency. At this point, the integration of Industry 4.0 into lean production practices is a very significant development in order to increase companies’ productivity and reduce their wastage. Following the emergence of Industry 4.0, the availability of new technologies draws the attention of companies in order to sustain the applicability of lean production practices in business processes. While the lean production approach aims to bring insight into simplicity and plainness by eliminating operational complexity, Industry 4.0 is to incorporate technologies that seek to facilitate the lives of enterprises and people. While Industry 4.0 and its lean applications attract more and more interest in the developing technology, we have found that number of the studies in this field is limited and there is a considerable shortage in the literature. Therefore, this article is one of the few studies that address the lean philosophy, digital factory, and Industry 4.0 application together and systematically review the literature. In the present study, we tried to provide an overview of the integration of lean and Industry 4.0 and the establishment of digital factories, the challenges and barriers experienced therein, and what the future holds for these practices, which we have noticed to lack in the literature. Accordingly, academic studies were reviewed starting from 1990, when lean thinking came to life, and as a result, 29 articles were identified by conducting a systematic literature review between 2018 and 2022 when the popularity of Industry 4.0 and lean practices has increased, and an inference was reached by determining the topics and contents of the articles.