Function framework for describing digital technologies in the context of lean production

Intensifying challenges such as volatility, individualization and consequential complexity increasingly bring lean production systems to their performance limits. Using digital technologies serves as possible solution to overcome the limits of lean production and to enhance its capability of reducing waste within production processes. Therefore, a holistic and generic approach is required that allows to characterize digital technologies with respect to their effects on reducing waste in production processes. This paper introduces a function framework that describes digital technologies based on a function-oriented and impact-driven attribution concerning their effects on reducing waste and therefore on superordinate goals of lean production.