Barriers to integrated lean management-industry 4.0 technologies

Abstract

Lean management is a well-known manufacturing and service supply chain management philosophy.The various industry 4.0 technologies have also received enough attention because of their capabilitiesand initiated a debate among practitioners and academicians on integrating both paradigms. Despitethe potential benefits estimated in many research studies and reports, the implementation statuscould be more encouraging in organisations. Therefore, in this study, all potential barriers are identi-fied and analysed. These barriers were identified from existing literature and finalised with the help ofexperts. Further, ‘Interpretive Structure Modeling (ISM)’ was used to reveal their contextual relation-ship. Finally, the ‘Analytic Network Process (ANP)’ ranked the key barriers based on their importance.The results revealed that ‘lack of skilled and experienced workers’ and ‘lack of government policies’are the most critical barriers. Based on the study’s outcomes, policymakers could make a more effect-ive strategy to address these critical barriers. Additionally, organizations can adapt the proposedhybrid approach to address the barriers more effectively.