An Analysis of the Literature on Industry 4.0 and the Major Technologies

As Industry 4.0 mainly entails the diffusion and adoption of technology, developing countries may encounter challenges in the form of a sluggish diffusion-adoption process as it typically flows from developed countries. To demonstrate how this process is scientifically progressing, this article employs Bibliometric analysis which is widely used for examining and analysing massive volumes of scientific data. With the substantially growing academic and industry interests in Industry 4.0, this study by using the bibliometric and network analysis is accordingly aimed at investigating and mapping the literature on Industry 4.0. In doing so, this research extracted its data from the Scopus database based on the descriptive data of publication outputs; it retrieved 3988 journal articles published up to May 2021. The analyses indicate there is a consistent rise in the total number of cumulative publications up until today; interestingly, publications on the topic had dramatically increased by 1633 articles in 2020. Italy with 380 publications was ranked first among the leading countries, covering 9.52% of the overall publications. In general, 49% of the global publications were contributed by developed countries including Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, the United States, South Korea, Spain, and Poland. Surprisingly, none of the universities in the top 10 countries are ranked among the top 100 universities in the world. Based on the identified patterns, the major technologies related to Industry 4.0 are also discussed.