Contributions of lean six sigma to sustainable manufacturing requirements: an Industry 4.0 perspective

Abstract

Industry 4.0 is reshaping modern manufacturing with increased data availability and accessibility. Therefore, further support of the system and product lifecycles is provided. On the other hand, sustainable manufacturing gains more attention due to the environmental concerns and resource consumption. The green impact of lean six sigma has been approached in literature. However, the changes to a manufacturing system’s nature provide new insights to employ lean six sigma quality tools for further sustainability. This paper proposes a framework of using six sigma to achieve the sustainable manufacturing requirements from the perspective of Industry 4.0 and its enablers. The influence of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on the relationship between sustainable manufacturing 6R and lean six sigma DMAIC is studied. A case study of cylindrical cell battery assembly line is used to investigate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. The framework can be adjusted to suit different types of manufacturing processes and systems.