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The integration between the traditional lean management and Industry 4.0, namely called Lean 4.0, is under the spotlight of both academia and practitioners. While we agree on the benefits Lean 4.0 may bring to companies performance, we still lack a deep understanding of the characteristics of this paradigm, such as its effective application space. Recalling traditional lean better suits repetitive companies, we are keen to understand whether the anew Lean 4.0 will enlarge its application space.

We performed an exploratory study, using a quantitative analysis based on Bayesian network approach to investigate whether Lean 4.0 results to be as effective in repetitive companies as in non-repetitive ones, in terms of operational performance.

While our findings confirm that Lean 4.0 will enhance companies' performance regardless their production strategies, companies adopting a repetitive strategy do benefit from a much higher improvement. Our findings provide an insight on the true applicability space of Lean 4.0, which seems to be the same as the traditional lean.

We contribute to the ongoing debate of Lean 4.0 providing initial empirical evidence on how to improve the operational performance in non-repetitive companies, seeing that Lean 4.0 might not be the best choice in its current format.

Industry 4.0 and Lean Production are a successful match in terms of performance improvement. While we understand the combined potential, there is still poor understanding of how companies should embrace digital transformation to make it successful and sustainable, and the role that lean plays in it. In this paper, we investigate how manufacturing companies embark upon digital transformation and how being lean might affect it.

We conducted multiple case studies with 19 manufacturing companies. We identified two clusters of companies according to their Lean maturity, and we assessed digital transformation patterns by analyzing insights coming both from cases and from the literature. Integrating cross-case analysis results, we developed a framework that shows two different digital transformation patterns according to companies’ commitment to Lean.

Our findings first and foremost show the significant role of lean in driving digital transformation. We identify two patterns, namely Sustaining digital transformation pattern, characterized by the pervasive role of lean culture with small and horizontal digital changes, involvement of people and willingness to maintain continuous process improvement, and Disruptive digital transformation pattern, characterized by few and large digital steps that imply a disruptive and radical change in the company system.

Empirical evidence supports the relevance of the proposed model and its practical usefulness. It can be used to design digital transformation, prepare properly the introduction of Industry 4.0 through a lean approach, and plan the future desired state, identifying the Industry 4.0 technologies that should be implemented.

It is widely recognized that the relationship between Industry 4.0 and lean is significant and positive, yet little evidence was presented to back that. We aim at bringing this debate forward by providing initial empirical evidence of the significant role that lean has on digital transformation, showing how lean drives the digital transformation pattern of companies.