A bibliometric analysis of 50 years of worldwide research on statistical process control

Abstract

Resumo: Um crescente número de trabalhos sobre controle estatístico do processo (CEP) emergiu nos últimos cinquentaAbstract: An increasing number of papers on statistical process control (SPC) has emerged in the last fifty years, especially in the last fifteen years. This may be attributed to the increased global competitiveness generated by innovation and the continuous improvement of products and processes. In this sense, SPC has a fundamentally important role in quality and production systems. The research in this paper considers the context of technological improvement and innovation of products and processes to increase corporate competitiveness. There are several other statistical technics and tools for assisting continuous improvement and innovation of products and processes but, despite the limitations in their use in the improvement projects, there is growing concern about the use of SPC. A gap between the SPC technics taught in engineering courses and their practical applications to industrial problems is observed in empirical research; thus, it is important to understand what has been done and identify the trends in SPC research. The bibliometric study in this paper is proposed in this direction and uses the Web of Science (WoS) database. Data analysis indicates that there was a growth rate of more than 90% in the number of publications on SPC after 1990. Our results reveal the countries where these publications have come from, the authors with the highest number of papers and their networks. Main sources of publications are also identified; it is observed that the publications of SPC papers are concentrated in some of the international research journals, not necessarily those with the major high-impact factors. Furthermore, the papers are focused on industrial engineering, operations research and management science fields. The most common term found in the papers was cumulative sum control charts, but new topics have emerged and have been researched in the past ten years, such as multivariate methods for process monitoring and nonparametric methods.

Lean Six Sigma in manufacturing process: a bibliometric study and research agenda

“…To understand the characteristics and distributions of a volume of scientific articles and to analyze these publications statistically, it is common to resort to the basic laws of bibliometric (Guedes and Borschiver, 2005;Lizarelli et al, 2016;Ciftci et al, 2016). They are: Bradford's Law, which analyzes the productivity of journals, highlighting the most prolific journals that explore a specific topic in an area of knowledge; Law of Lotka, which analyzes the number of publications and their frequency by authors with a specific theme and shows the authors contribution to the progress of science; and Zipf's Law, which analyzes the frequency and ranking of words that appear in a text.…”

A bibliometric view on the use of total quality management in services

“…There are three studies in this group. Lizarelli, Bessi, Oprime, Do Amaral, and Chakraborti (2016) propose a bibliometric analysis of the international publications about statistical process control (SPC) from 1956 to 2013. Veiga, Mendes, and Lourenç o ( 2016) conduct a bibliometric study on fundamental contributions on applications of statistical methods in the area of quality and process control.…”

“…Regarding the bibliometric methods, on the one hand, both Lizarelli et al (2016) and Veiga et al (2016) conduct publication counting and abstract analysis and citation analysis, which enable them to reach the conclusion of the growing importance of their topics and growth of publications in the corresponding fields. On the other hand, both Lizarelli et al (2016) and Gonzalez Aleu and Van Aken ( 2017) perform co-author analysis to investigate the issues of institution-level and country-level collaboration.…”

“…Regarding the bibliometric methods, on the one hand, both Lizarelli et al (2016) and Veiga et al (2016) conduct publication counting and abstract analysis and citation analysis, which enable them to reach the conclusion of the growing importance of their topics and growth of publications in the corresponding fields. On the other hand, both Lizarelli et al (2016) and Gonzalez Aleu and Van Aken ( 2017) perform co-author analysis to investigate the issues of institution-level and country-level collaboration. Lizarelli et al (2016) conclude that the most productive authors' publications in the various areas of SPC research publish in the same group of journals and have a strong research network, while one key finding of Gonzalez Aleu and Van Aken ( 2017) is that authors publishing in the area of CIPs can be described as a relatively new international community given the countries represented.…”

“…On the other hand, both Lizarelli et al (2016) and Gonzalez Aleu and Van Aken ( 2017) perform co-author analysis to investigate the issues of institution-level and country-level collaboration. Lizarelli et al (2016) conclude that the most productive authors' publications in the various areas of SPC research publish in the same group of journals and have a strong research network, while one key finding of Gonzalez Aleu and Van Aken ( 2017) is that authors publishing in the area of CIPs can be described as a relatively new international community given the countries represented.…”