Industry 4.0 adoption as a moderator of the impact of lean production practices on operational performance improvement

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the moderating role of Industry 4.0 technologies on the relationship between lean production (LP) and operational performance improvement within Brazil, a developing economy context. Design/methodology/approach: One representative from each of the 147 studied manufacturing companies filled in a survey on three internally related lean practice bundles and two Industry 4.0 technology bundles, with safety, delivery, quality, productivity and inventory as performance indicators. As this study was grounded on the contingency theory, multivariate data analyses were performed, controlling for four contingencies. Findings: Industry 4.0 moderates the e..