Unleashing Industry 4.0: Leveraging Lean Practices to Overcome Implementation Barriers

Digitalization is underway and is a new way to make companies more competitive. However, it is a tortuous road where failure often arises. Lean Management has been shown to be a significant element in the success of Digitalization, particularly in driving and directing companies on their digital technologies implementation journey. Despite this, there is limited evidence of how Lean Management can facilitate the implementation of Industry 4.0 technologies. Intending to understand this facilitating role, this paper investigates the relationship between different Lean Practices and the most common Industry 4.0 implementation barriers. Relying on expert opinions, through the use of the Interpretive Ranking Process (IRP) methodology, a specific relationship between Lean Practices and barriers has been depicted, showing that some practices have a major impact in reducing some specific barriers. In particular, the ones related to the Elimination of Waste and Continuous Improvement bundle are expected to be the most prominent. The implications of this study are both practical and theoretical, adding knowledge on how Lean can facilitate firms' digital transformation and setting the base for further research.