11. A Literature Review on Lean Manufacturing in the Industry 4.0: From Integrated Systems to IoT and Smart Factories

Since the Industry 4.0 nature is a world-scale phenomenon, lot of information are available today from several sources, presenting different points of view. From the scientific papers, the research is focused more on the theoretical steps for a future implementation and the benefits achievable, with important information on the development path followed by the industry to reach today’s situation. Other important resources are represented by the companies operating on the consultant and high-tech sectors, because the revolution is completely intertwined with the digital world and their reports can provide interesting information. At the end, the government reports of the most important manufacturing countries have been a good information source for the practical steps and the necessary requirements in order to create a favorable field for the implementation. Therefore, this chapter is intended to contribute over all these mentioned areas of knowledge, providing a brief state of the art regarding the Industry 4.0, the role of IoT and cloud computing in today’s and future factories, as well as a view along all those enabling technologies that complement among each other in the diverse industrial scenarios.