Discovering Artificial Intelligence Implementation and Insights for Lean Production

Overview & Synopsis

The research aims to understand how the implementation of Artificial Intelligence AI in Manufacturing Operations takes place. This paper will feed wider research on the interaction between Lean Production and AI, after understanding the implementation process of AI. A Systematic Literature Review (SLR) has been performed. A set of more than 2300 documents has been extracted and screened to produce a list of 90 highly selected and classified articles and conference papers dealing with the research question. After a first meta-level analysis, a structured discussion has been presented over the documents. Three macro use-cases for implementing AI into manufacturing systems have been identified. The first two use cases have been deeply analyzed by the SLR, while the third one has been left for further researches. For the first two use cases, the main applications have been presented through a comprehensive categorization (for stand-alone solution) and a clear explanation of the different paradigms (for I4.0 related implementation). Furthermore, for each case, the available frameworks have been presented. The main challenges and issues that managers should consider while implementing this kind of technology were presented. Possible consequences that AI innovations might have were also indicated. The article ends with insights for Lean production and future research.