Barriers and Enablers of Lean Industry 4.0

This paper provides the result of a global qualitative open-question survey into the barriers and enablers of Lean Industry 4.0. The key barrier identified were financial constraints and the key enabler was the various Industry 4.0 technologies. However, outside this, the barriers and enablers are mainly concerned with people, management and change management. The paper also examines how these factors change for respondents from organizations with different levels of maturity in Lean and Industry 4.0. It was found that financial resources were the most important barriers for advanced Lean and Industry 4.0 organizations with change management more important for highLean, low Industry 4.0 firms and engagement and alignment for low Lean, high Industry 4.0 firms. The use of the various Industry 4.0 technologies was the most important enabler for the most advanced Lean and Industry 4.0 organizations, with high Lean, low Industry 4.0 more unsure of the most important enabler and for low Lean, high Industry 4.0, engagement and alignment was the most cited enabler. These findings provide both academia, industry and third party providers such as government agencies and Universities the most detailed and scaled insights into barriers and enablers within Lean Industry 4.0. It also shows the linkage between the two and provides insights into the higher level of importance of change management, people resources and the role of leaders than had been cited in earlier work.