On the relationship between Industry 4.0 and Lean Management adoption: evidence from Italy

The purpose of this paper is twofold: i) checking whether the join adoption of Lean Management (LM) and of Industry 4.0 technologies can boost the manufacturing performance; ii) exploring the conditions that influence the adoption of LM and of Industry 4.0 technologies. Extant studies tried to understand whether, to what extent and upon which conditions the use of up-to-date manufacturing technologies can be beneficial for firms. In this regard, extant contributions claim that to achieve remarkable benefits, such solutions should be adopted only after the main wastes of the production system has been removed. However, empirical evidence doesn’t agree on the conditions that can influence the relationship between LM and Industry 4.0 adoption. Namely, those factors that more than others seem to be controversial are the following: company size; nature of the production process; level of experience in LM practices; manufacturing plant location; headquarter location. Our study wants to shed light on their role in the above-mentioned relationship. A survey has been conducted and 189 usable questionnaires were collected from manufacturing companies with plants in Italy. The evidence of this study shows that there is a statistically significant relationship between the adoption of LM principles and Industry 4.0 technologies. It is also demonstrated that companies that jointly adopt LM principles and Industry 4.0 technologies achieve better manufacturing performance. Furthermore, we show that companies with an international footprint enjoy a higher level of adoption of LM and of Industry 4.0 technologies.