Establishing product-service systems (PSSs) has for a few decades been considered a key task for manufacturers to achieve sustainable competitiveness. However, it is also a challenging task, requiring adaptation of several functions in the manufacturers' organisations. Production is one of these functions, and the overarching purpose of this study is to investigate what guidance is available to production managers, who aim to adapt their production units to support PSSs. To compile how PSSs will likely change what is commonly expected from producing functions, a review was conducted of 69 recent, structured literature reviews in the PSS literature. The results indicate a variety of likely changes to the common expectations, but they have not been described comprehensively enough to guide production managers who aim to adapt for PSSs. A more thorough review is needed to validate these conclusions, but if that review would reach similar conclusions, and spark investigations into how PSS will change the expectations on producing functions, this could close an important research-practice gap in the PSS literature.

Prior literature reviews on combining Industry 4.0 (I4.0) and Lean Production (LP) in production has often described the paradigms as “supportive”, where either “I4.0 supports LP” or “LP supports I4.0”. In this systematic review of 50 studies from this growing area of research, we find evidence of cases where combinations have not been “supportive”. We also find evidence of causal interactions that cannot be subordinated “I4.0 supports LP” nor “LP supports I4.0”, and that plainly go beyond those two categories. Additionally, we find that several studies evaluate the merits of I4.0- and LP combinations without looking at their effects on results in production, which substantially reduces the use of these evaluations to production managers. We encourage future studies to use nomenclature that does not unnecessarily limit the overall perception of the properties of I4.0- and LP combinations, to evaluate the merits of such combinations more in line with the requirements of production managers, and to be more cautious when concluding on causal interactions between I4.0 and LP.

Automotive small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) suppliers are important players in many national economies. They are currently facing increased pressure to manage the undergoing, demanding changes in the automotive industry. One proposed way for the firms to manage is to introduce Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies in their production, but for this to happen the firms need to consider such technologies in their strategic work. In this study, insights were gathered through interviews with representatives from 24 SME durable goods suppliers within automotive in Sweden, to find out what role I4.0 technologies play in their business-level strategic work. The findings show that these firms do not seem to consider the introduction of I4.0 technologies in production in their strategic work. The firms also do not include any other kind of long-term improvement programs in production in their strategizing. This goes against recommendations from several prior studies, which have emphasized the importance of I4.0 technologies in production for the future competitiveness of automotive SME suppliers. This study contributes to the discussion on how automotive SME suppliers can use I4.0 technologies strategically in their production, by being the first to empirically investigate the role of production in these firms' strategic work.