A global industrial perspective on lean industry 4.0: a qualitative wide-angle lens approach

Hines, Peter, Tortorella, Guilherme Luz, Antony, Jiju, Romero, David, Walsh, Aidan, Taylor, Darrin, Alves, Anabela Carvalho, Bertolini, Massimo, Caiado, Rodrigo, Demeterj, Krisztina, Dinis-Carvalho, José, Ferreira, Luís Pinto, Fettermann, Diego, Godinho Filho, Moacir, Gaiardelli, Paolo, Howe, Graham, Inan, Guven Gurkan, Kumar, Maneesh ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2469-1382, Le, Chi Hieu, Magnani, Florian, Maqueira, Juan Manuel, Mula, Josefa, Packianather, Michael, Peças, Paulo, Pereira, Maria Teresa Ribeiro, Powell, Daryl, Prashar, Anupama, Rehman, Masood Ur, De Sá, José Carlos Vieira, Saabye, Henrik, Erol, Selim, Teixeira, Leonor and Zak, Helen 2025. A global industrial perspective on lean industry 4.0: a qualitative wide-angle lens approach. Production Planning and Control 10.1080/09537287.2025.2509143

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Abstract

This paper provides an insight into the global state of Lean Industry 4.0 (LI4) with over 1,000 industry responses. The approach employs a rigorous qualitative open-response survey. Our findings indicate that there was no unified industry perspective of LI4 terminology. The evolution of I4 is taking a similar path to Lean and making the same mistakes by not focusing on leadership, engagement, competencies, and behaviours. Past academic research has perhaps over-emphasised the environment and supply chain. The benefits of LI4 application are largely in terms of efficiency, cost reduction, learning and engagement. This work contributes by highlighting research avenues: why a piecemeal approach has been taken by industry to LI4, why LI4 has not been more widespread, and more detailed studies around contingent factors). It also provides industry with lessons on how to implement LI4 and the mistakes to avoid such as seeing implementation as a purely technical exercise.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Schools > Business (Including Economics)
Publisher:	Taylor and Francis Group
ISSN:	0953-7287
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	24 June 2025
Date of Acceptance:	13 May 2025
Last Modified:	24 Jun 2025 13:35
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/179297

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