Industry 4.0, in fact, is what we call the fourth industrial revolution. This concept was put forward by Germany, and is not universally recognized around the world, because most of our national manufacturing industry is still in the stage of Industry 3.0, Industry 4.0 and Industry 3.0 and the boundaries are relatively blurred. What is Industry 4.0, it is about the Internet of Things, that is, the concept of the Internet of Everything, which is very hot now. That is to say, we will step from the traditional era of stand-alone intelligence and informationization to the era of big data in the cloud era. All the information and data can be shared and applied in a timely manner, and through the growing development of big data algorithms, we can gradually realize that the manufacturing industry has certain artificial intelligence capabilities. At this stage the degree of lean production should have reached a certain level, so I think lean production is the prerequisite and foundation for the realization of Industry 4.0. Without the concept of lean production to guide, then the development of industry 4.0 will also be a lot of resistance.

And lean manufacturing is never-ending. As technology develops, we are constantly updating our requirements for lean manufacturing, and the guidance documents for lean manufacturing are being updated every year based on the latest technology and design concepts. In the era of Industry 4.0, we think Lean will play an even bigger role.

So there is no plagiarism between the two concepts, but rather their application is complementary and mutually reinforcing, one without the other.