Title: Past and future of Industry 4.0: a bibliometric review using bibliometrix and VOSviewer

Authors: Filipe Machado; Nelson Duarte; António Amaral; Madalena Araújo

Addresses: ALGORITMI, DPS, Universidade do Minho, Campus de Azurém, Alameda da Universidade, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal ' INESCTEC, ESTG, Instituto Politécnico do Porto, Rua do Curral, Margaride, 4610-156 Felgueiras, Portugal; IRIEM, Hong Kong ' INESCTEC, ISEP, Instituto Politécnico do Porto, Rua Dr. António Bernardino de Almeida, 431, 4249-015 Porto, Portugal ' ALGORITMI, LASI, DPS, Universidade do Minho, Campus de Azurém, Alameda da Universidade, 4800-058 Guimarães, Portugal

Abstract: Industry 4.0 (I4.0) is a research field that accounted for an explosion of scientific publications since 2011. It is impractical to analyse the content of these many documents in a reasonable time (20,000). In these terms, the present research proposes a bibliometric review of this research field to identify its intellectual roots, research front, trends and gaps. The research settled for a must-read list, the past and current research themes and their evolution, and the supportive intellectual structure of the research field. It defined the research front under two general topics: 'I4.0 implementation' and 'I4.0 effects on sustainability', and it also presented thematic evolution trends and research gaps. Bibliometric analyses of the scientific field of I4.0 have several precedents: however, they have yet to embrace all the documents present in WOS and SCOPUS core collections. In this sense, the present article brings a novelty to the annals of the research field.

Keywords: Industry 4.0; I4.0; bibliometric review; digital transformation; manufacturing; intelligent manufacturing; trend analysis.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLC.2024.135613

International Journal of Learning and Change, 2024 Vol.16 No.1, pp.53 - 85

Received: 23 Sep 2022
Accepted: 12 Apr 2023
Published online: 19 Dec 2023 *

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