Application of Digital Lean Manufacturing System in Additive Manufacturing Industries: A Review

Abstract

Application of lean manufacturing (LM) principles within the manufacturing industry extends back several decades to drive efficiency and reduce waste across complex production lines. The advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, known as “Industry 4.0” technology is transforming the LM processes to promote the manufacturing industry. Additive Manufacturing (AM) has been identified as a technology with great potential to create a longstanding impact on the manufacturing world and is a core component of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Many successful industries have achieved outstanding performance by integrating LM principles at the core of their corporate transformation. Of recent, AM and 3D printing has been identified as a technology that is revolutionizing LM principles in the following ways: easier prototyping, easily customize products, shorter lead times, local on-demand manufacturing, and lower cost production. Despite the exceptional success of LM principles across different industries and sectors, still many companies LM journeys fail due to many obvious reasons. The emergence of Industry 4.0 digital technologies has created an enabling environment for different manufacturing industries currently using LM principles to identify the need to embrace or add digital technologies to their lean manufacturing transformation journey. The intersections between LM and digital technologies are termed as “Digital Lean” or “Lean 4.0”. There are limited studies and literature gaps on lean manufacturing within the context of AM industry. More so, there is no study that examines the application of digital lean manufacturing in an AM industry. The paper presents a review of the concept of lean manufacturing principles and how it is revolutionizing the AM industry. This paper investigates the concept of digital lean manufacturing and its future potential impact in the AM industry. Finally, this paper develops a digital lean manufacturing system or tools considered suitable for the AM industry.