Industry 4.0 technologies extend lean manufacturing by turning reactive fixes into predictive ones. Instead of waiting for a machine to fail and hunting for a technician, IoT sensors let operators spot problems early, stock parts ahead of time, or prevent breakdowns entirely. Real-time data and automation cut downtime and waste.
Can you talk for a minute about how your perspective on how lean and Industry 4.0 come together?
Yeah, so I think from just where I sit, it's just an extension of lean. So a lot of what you're doing with lean is common sense stuff. You're trying to take out waste. And so a good example, Raven, when my machines would break down before, operator had to go try to find somebody to fix the thing, and that may take, who knows, I mean, you're wandering around the factory, you're calling the radio, you're calling the phone. Now it's a simple button push, and maybe I can maybe even fix it before it breaks down. That's a novel idea. Rather than waiting until it breaks and then trying to go fix it, what can we do to be more proactive and make sure we have parts in place to fix that when it goes down? So even if it does go down, you're minimizing the impact.
So to me, they're just— they're an extension of each other.
