95 per cent of the companies consider the optimization of their processes and reduction of waste to be important or even very important methods in the transition toward the factory of the future. As such, these tools rank first in the favor of companies. “The internet of things is strongly establishing itself in manufacturing. It is to be assumed that the majority of producing companies will have completed the transition to an intelligent factory at the latest in ten years,” says Wilhelm Goschy, Executive Board member of Staufen AG. “Thereby, to a significant degree, the success of a smart factory depends on whether the company itself has clearly defined its processes prior to this.” However, other Lean tools are also paving the way to Factory 4.0: Here, about nine of ten companies consider the reduction of throughput and set-up times to be important or even very important, just like value stream-oriented organization, variant and complexity management as well as consumption control. In addition, the study also confirms: Lean Management helps when it comes to doing justice to the industry 4.0-associated trend of increased individualization of products (key work: batch size 1). About three quarters of the study participants are convinced of this. “If companies wish to retain their top ranking internationally when it comes to Industry 4.0, they will need to drive their factories’ development toward intelligent production to an extent that is at least as great as has been the case to date,” warns Staufen Executive Board member Goschy. “Thereby, Lean Management is the metronome, meaning a lean, decentralized and – as such – efficient positioning of the entire organization.” About the study of “25 years of Lean Management” Scientific support for the study was provided by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Joachim Metternich of the TU Darmstadt Institute of Production Management, Technology and Machine Tools (PTW). The starting point of the investigation was the book “The Machine that Changed the World”, which, 25 years ago, had originally prompted the international breakthrough of Lean Management. “There had been numerous attempts long before the 1990s to make industrial work more efficient and more effective. However, only the seminal publication by James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones and Daniel Roos gave rise to a management culture that is justified in its claim to have caused a lasting change in the patterns of thinking in factory halls,” Staufen Executive Board Member Goschy explains. “For that reason, I am particularly delighted to be able to welcome Daniel T. Jones, one of its authors, as one of the speakers at our “BestPractice Day 2016” Lean congress in July.” You can request a copy of the study ”25 years of Lean Management“ by contacting: Kathrin Kurz, k.kurz@staufen.ag Press release (.pdf) Press release (.rtf) Download the press graphics (in German)
