Compared with developed countries, printing and packaging enterprises are still at a relatively extensive management level, facing numerous pressures such as rising costs, declining profitability, and increasingly stringent energy conservation and environmental protection requirements. Relying solely on market share can no longer guarantee profit growth, making transformation and upgrading an inevitable choice. With the continuous implementation of strategies such as Germany's "Industry 4.0," the United States' "Industrial Internet," and "Made in China 2025," global printing and packaging enterprises are gradually moving toward digitalization, interconnectivity, and intelligent development. Thanks to the widespread application of new-generation digital technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, the foundation for the development of the digital economy has been increasingly consolidated, and the momentum for traditional printing and packaging enterprises to transform and upgrade toward intelligent manufacturing continues to gather. Furthermore, after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019, some printing and packaging enterprises that had started digital transformation early and achieved a high degree of digitalization were relatively less impacted, and some even achieved counter-trend growth. However, many small and medium-sized traditional printing and packaging enterprises proved particularly sensitive to the external environmental changes brought about by the pandemic, facing considerable survival pressure. Whether driven by internal or external factors, traditional printing and packaging enterprises are being compelled to accelerate their progress toward intelligent manufacturing and digitalization. In light of this, this article focuses on how traditional printing and packaging enterprises can establish lean digital operations through the integration of lean operations and digitalization.

Over the past two decades, lean operations have helped enterprises worldwide achieve operational excellence, with improvements in key performance indicators (KPIs) such as productivity, lead times, product quality, and delivery. At the same time, the past 20 years have witnessed the rapid advancement of digital technologies, with most enterprises experiencing transformative changes in their production and operations. Increasingly mature artificial intelligence (AI), advanced analytics, and robotic process automation technologies have completely revolutionized lean transformation, making enterprise management more transparent, reducing silos across organizational levels and functional departments, improving automation levels and data-driven decision-making, and reducing transformation costs and time.

Today, the organic integration of digitalization and lean operations has given rise to "Digital Lean." It incorporates Industry 4.0 elements into traditional lean thinking, reshaping end-to-end processes and achieving digital management. Digital lean management is based on a "single source of truth" (data hub) and utilizes advanced analytics and remote monitoring technologies to support capability building.

1. Characteristics of Lean and Digitalization

Both lean and digitalization focus on optimizing the entire value chain of production management, following the principle of step-by-step and orderly improvement. They aim to progressively enhance four modules: shop floor production, operations, organizational processes, and strategic mechanisms—that is, optimizing the enterprise's production and operation chain sequentially through four stages: "Point, Line, Plane, and System" (or "Dot, Line, Surface, and Body"). At each of these four stages, lean and digitalization have different emphases. Based on existing research, this article summarizes the characteristics of lean and digitalization across the four stages of "Point, Line, Plane, and System."

Table 1: Characteristics of Lean and Digitalization

1.  Lean Operations Empowering Digitalization

Data-Driven Decision Making: Lean operations emphasize making decisions based on data, which aligns highly with the concept of digitalization. Through lean methodologies, enterprises can identify which data are critical, thereby optimizing the processes of data collection, analysis, and utilization to support data-driven decision-making.

Process Optimization: Lean operations focus on optimizing processes by identifying and eliminating waste within them. This mindset of process optimization provides a framework for digitalization, enabling enterprises to better understand how to leverage technology to improve processes during digital implementation.

Customer Orientation: Lean operations emphasize a customer value-oriented approach, where only activities that create value for customers are considered effective. This customer-centric mindset helps enterprises maintain a consistent focus on enhancing customer experience and meeting customer needs throughout their digital transformation journey.

Employee Engagement: Lean operations advocate for employee involvement, recognizing employees as key to improvement. This philosophy also supports digitalization, as employee engagement is crucial for the successful implementation of digital transformation.

Continuous Improvement: Lean operations stress continuous improvement, an ethos that encourages enterprises to continuously experiment, learn, and refine their approaches throughout the digitalization process.

2. Digitalization Strengthening Lean Operations

Digital Industry 4.0 focuses on manufacturing transformation, relying on Internet of Things (IoT) technology to achieve interconnectivity among intelligent systems. Previously, when identifying and addressing root causes, enterprises primarily relied on communication with employees, understanding internal processes and pain points through feedback; today, enterprises can leverage digital technologies to aggregate and review existing data, enabling faster and more precise resolution of fundamental issues.

Digital lean means that enterprises establish a series of interconnected digital dashboards that share information with one another, aggregating into a single database at the organizational level. These dashboards not only update KPIs in real time but also aggregate and compare data across organizational levels and functional departments, enabling "top-down" transmission. For example, profitability KPIs at the CEO level can be rapidly broken down into revenue and costs, and further decomposed to business teams, business lines, and product lines.

Achieving Sustainable Improvement. Digital technologies help increase transparency in the lean transformation pathway, enhance employee and management understanding of lean management models, break away from inefficient existing patterns, and drive sustainable development. Furthermore, employee loyalty and transformation accuracy are significantly improved.

Through digital dashboards, enterprises can update SOPs in real time, encourage employees to reflect on and summarize daily performance, and resolve employee issues in real time, thereby substantially improving employee satisfaction and engagement. Take a leading group insurance company as an example: after implementing digital lean transformation, employee engagement jumped from 55% to approximately 80%.

Dual Enhancement of Efficiency and Sensitivity. Introducing digital lean can greatly simplify internal processes, improve communication efficiency with high-stake stakeholders, and shorten the time required for transformation; in fact, digital lean can reduce project delivery cycles from 2–3 years under traditional lean to just one year.

1. Establishing Lean Digital Operations for Printing and Packaging Enterprises

1）Define Objectives: First, it is necessary to clarify the objectives of lean digital operations. These may include improving production efficiency, reducing waste, enhancing product quality, and increasing customer satisfaction. These objectives should be measurable to facilitate tracking and evaluating progress.

2）Identify and Understand Processes: At this stage, a thorough understanding of business processes is required to identify areas of waste and inefficiency. This can be achieved through tools such as process flowcharts and value stream mapping.

3）Data Collection: To support decision-making and optimization, large volumes of data need to be collected and analyzed. This may include production data, quality data, customer feedback, etc. This step may require the use of data collection devices and systems, such as sensors and data acquisition cards.

4）Technology Implementation: At this stage, appropriate digital technologies need to be selected and implemented, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and big data. These technologies can help automate processes, improve data accuracy and availability, and provide deeper insights.

5）Continuous Improvement: Digitalization is not a one-time project but an ongoing process. Therefore, it is necessary to continuously monitor and evaluate effectiveness, making adjustments and optimizations based on feedback.

6）Employee Training and Engagement: Both lean operations and digitalization require active employee participation. Therefore, necessary training must be provided to help employees understand the principles and technologies of lean operations and digitalization, and to enhance their skills and capabilities. At the same time, employees should be encouraged to propose improvement suggestions and participate in improvement activities.

Finally, establishing lean digital operations for printing and packaging enterprises is a long-term, systematic endeavor that requires firm commitment and support from management, as well as the participation and efforts of all employees. Only in this way can the goals of lean operations be truly achieved, production efficiency and quality be improved, customer needs be met, and the competitiveness of printing and packaging enterprises be enhanced.

About Realscheme

Shanghai Realscheme Enterprise Management Consulting Co., Ltd. is headquartered in Shanghai, with collaborative networks established in Seattle, Munich, and Singapore. The company serves industries including printing and packaging, stationery and education, textiles, cables and wires, and metal processing, focusing on comprehensive solutions for digital transformation in manufacturing. We provide clients with services such as process reengineering consulting, digital transformation implementation, and intelligent manufacturing integration. Embracing the future and empowering clients, Realscheme currently serves over 100 industry clients, with a professional consulting team comprised of seasoned industry experts. Leveraging our strengths in specialization, platformization, and internationalization, we facilitate best practice exchanges in manufacturing and contribute to the success of digital transformation in the industry.

For more corporate information and success stories, please visit our company website and WeChat official account: http://www.realscheme.com

Contact: Ms. Zhou Xiaoqing, Tel: +86 18019320206