Exploring the evolution of Industry 4.0 research: A bibliometric perspective

In this paper, the evolution of research activities targeting Industry 4.0 has been extensively studied through a set of bibliometric analyses, leveraging a wide sample of journal papers retrieved from the Scopus database using the single search term "Industry 4.0". This query yielded over 12,000 research and review papers published up to 2023. Using this sample, the study employs robust bibliometric techniques to analyze trends of research over time, citation patterns, and thematic evolution within the field of Industry 4.0. By synthesizing findings from this extensive literature corpus, the paper provides insights into the trajectory and impact of Industry 4.0 research, highlighting key advancements, research hotspots, and emerging areas of interest. Results show that research in the area of Industry 4.0 is wide and variegated. Besides highly debated and well-known scientific topics, numerous complementary, less debated or emerging topics can be identified, highlighting the expansion of the research field beyond the traditional boundaries of Industry 4.0. Sustainability-related aspects, in particular, have emerged as important topics frequently associated to Industry 4.0 themes. The set of considerations derived from the bibliometric analyses also allows deriving some preliminary conclusions about the maturity level of the research on Industry 4.0. This bibliometric study thus contributes to a deeper understanding of the evolution of Industry 4.0 and paves the way to future research directions in this field.