A decade of research on Industry 4.0 : a bibliometric study of key research areas with life cycle analysis of publication dynamics

Abstract

PURPOSE: The aim of the research is to investigate the dynamics of scientific publications on Industry 4.0 and to present the idea of Industry 4.0 on the basis of publications using the life cycle of research areas.

APPROACH/METHODOLOGY/DESIGN: Over the last few years, the fourth industrial revolution has attracted more and more attentions all around the world. A decade has passed since the concept of Industry 4.0 was initiated. In 2011, for the first time a German business and government group presented a new technical strategy called: "Industrie 4.0". Since that year, the concept of Industry 4.0 has been popularised around the world, especially in highly developed countries whose industries have implemented the technological innovations of the third industrial revolution. Today, after a decade since the initiation of the Industry 4.0 concept, it is worth taking stock of the global development of science on the basis of the Industry 4.0 idea. In this paper a bibliometric analysis of world scientific works in the area of the Industry 4.0 concept was carried out. Scientific publications placed in the Web of Science (WoS) database were analysed. The time scope of the analysis covered the period from 2011 to 2021. The analysis is a reconstruction of development trends of the Industry 4.0 concept on the basis of scientific works of researchers from all over the world.

FINDINGS: The results of the performed analysis created an interesting picture of knowledge about Industry 4.0 focused around the idea of this concept of industrial development, and presented chronologically and historically using the method of life cycle of the analysed research subject.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: The utilitarian aspect of the work is the methodology of the publication life cycle used, based on the dynamics of the number of publications in the WoS scientific database.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE: The added value of the research is the use of the product life cycle to perform a bibliometric analysis on the topic of Industry 4.0, where the product life cycle is replaced by a life cycle developed from the dynamics of publications on Industry 4.0.