Reflections and Practices on Digital Lean Enabling Enterprise Digital Transformation

In recent years, with the deepening application of lean theory, which focuses on waste elimination and quality improvement, and the continuous emergence of digital technologies, the efficiency gains achievable by relying solely on either single theory or technology have become increasingly limited. To address this challenge, integrating lean principles into digitalization, thereby forming "Digital Lean," is anticipated to help enterprises unlock new production potential and transition from a "single-wheel drive" to a "dual-wheel drive." Based on years of experience in digital transformation projects, this paper integrates lean thinking into conventional digital transformation architecture and proposes a new digital transformation architecture that incorporates Digital Lean. Guided by this architecture, both existing and new production enterprises can break through the efficiency improvement constraints of conventional digital transformation. They can achieve benefits across the entire value chain—from design, planning, and manufacturing to supply and logistics distribution—realizing a comprehensive shift from experience-based to quantitative management, and from local to global optimization. Furthermore, this paper illustrates the application effectiveness of this Digital Lean-integrated digital transformation architecture through a project case.