I will first clarify China’s current Industry 4.0 development stage with authoritative cases, then elaborate the core logic of lean production as the foundational support for intelligent upgrading, and systematically sort out three practical implementation paths for enterprises.

Before diving into lean production, it is essential to clarify the current stage of China’s Industry 4.0 transformation. At the China Machine Tool Industry Development Forum held in November, Ning Zhenbo, Chief Consultant of the Information Technology Center at AVIC Group, shared authoritative insights on China’s Industry 4.0 development status. He pointed out that China is currently in the stage of digesting and accumulating Industry 4.0 technologies, far from the phase of mature industrial application and large-scale commercialization.

He illustrated this status with a vivid and industry-recognized evaluation case. A complete Industry 4.0 evaluation standard system was jointly established by the German National Academy of Science and Engineering and renowned German universities. Based on this unified standard, the Siemens factory in Nuremberg scored 3.5 points (with a full score of 4.0 for Industry 4.0), while Bosch’s automotive industrial business in Germany scored 3.4 points. When the same professional evaluation team adopted identical criteria to assess Huawei’s intelligent manufacturing system in China, the score stood at only 2.7 points. In addition, Xinhua News Agency reporters visited the Nuremberg factory and interviewed its management team, asking when the factory would achieve full 4.0-level maturity. After careful consideration, the factory manager replied that it would take another 15 to 20 years.

This fully demonstrates that even leading German manufacturing enterprises still face a long journey to complete Industry 4.0 upgrading. For China’s manufacturing industry, the path toward mature Industry 4.0 construction is even longer and more arduous. Nevertheless, advancing toward Industry 4.0 is an inevitable path to build a powerful industrial nation. As the core starting point of manufacturing transformation and upgrading, lean production, together with automation, digitalization and intelligentization, forms the four core pillars of Industry 4.0. Among them, lean production serves as the fundamental foundation for the other three dimensions, running through the entire process of enterprises’ Industry 4.0 transformation. It is worth noting that lean transformation is never easy; cultivating systematic lean thinking and implementing consistent lean improvement practices pose even greater challenges for enterprises.

1. Unify Enterprise-wide Lean Thinking

On the surface, a lean system empowers enterprises to build an operational model featuring low costs, short delivery cycles, multi-variety and small-batch production, and sustainable core competitiveness. Essentially, the core of lean production lies in people. It focuses on systematically cultivating employees’ problem-solving capabilities and shaping scientific thinking logic through standardized lean tools and methods. Therefore, unifying the lean cognition of all staff, including enterprise leaders and front-line executors, and enabling full understanding of the value and implementation logic of lean management is the primary prerequisite for successful transformation.

Currently, many enterprises rely solely on training to drive staff transformation, yet the effect is extremely limited. Single theoretical training fails to break employees’ inertial working habits, and most staff adopt a perfunctory attitude, resulting in ineffective improvement activities.

To reverse this situation, enterprises must prioritize the cultivation of lean thinking. First, enterprise leaders shall take the lead in learning lean concepts, launch lean improvement initiatives with strong leadership, and guide front-line employees to participate in practical improvements. Second, start with minor and micro improvements around daily production scenarios. Let employees intuitively perceive the tangible benefits of lean optimization, so as to actively participate in transformation and gradually build interest and confidence in lean management.

2. Implement Targeted Lean Practices

After establishing unified lean cognition, enterprises need to adopt targeted methodological practices based on their actual operational conditions, as all production problems are embedded in business processes. Given the varying lean maturity of different enterprises, their improvement priorities and implementation paths differ significantly.

Typically, manufacturing plants suffer from eight major types of waste: waiting, transportation, defective products, unnecessary motion, over-processing, excessive inventory, overproduction, and post-event management waste. Enterprises shall formulate targeted improvement plans based on their dominant pain points. For example, enterprises with high inventory waste can optimize production and procurement modes to reduce bulk processing and purchasing. In contrast, enterprises that already maintain low inventory levels need to focus on rectifying overproduction and premature production waste.

In general, all process problems in lean production correspond to professional solution tools. Lean production tools apply to optimizing process efficiency and speed; Six Sigma tools focus on improving process stability and reducing operational fluctuation; professional process design methods are adopted to reconstruct and upgrade insufficient inherent process capabilities. Every enterprise shall adjust its lean system construction based on its own operational characteristics and actual demands.

3. Adhere to Sustained Continuous Improvement

The essence of lean management is continuous iterative improvement. It does not require dedicated professional teams to take charge of lean work, but requires full staff participation in daily optimization. Toyota, the pioneer of lean production, has no full-time lean management personnel, yet maintains world-class lean operation levels entirely through long-term sustained improvement activities.

First, enterprises need to cultivate employees’ awareness of active improvement and efficiency optimization. Management teams shall incorporate improvement achievements into staff performance appraisal mechanisms to fully mobilize employees’ initiative and enthusiasm.

Second, improvement management must be visualized. Visual management effectively exposes hidden process problems and identifies optimization breakthroughs. For instance, to optimize factory logistics routes, enterprises need to collect full-cycle operational data of logistics vehicles, including waiting points, congestion sections and meeting conflicts, so as to accurately locate problems and implement precise improvements.

Lean optimization covers every link and every detail of enterprise production and operation, and continuous improvement is the core essence of lean management. In the journey toward Industry 4.0, lean production acts as both the foundational cornerstone and the essential evolutionary process. Solid lean construction enables enterprises to carry out automation, digitalization and intelligent upgrading more efficiently than their competitors, providing solid cultural accumulation and cost advantages for the comprehensive realization of Industry 4.0.