Industry 4.0 and Sustainability: A Bibliometric Literature Review

Abstract

Industry 4.0 (I4.0), Sustainability, and the Circular Economy are recently popularized concepts likely to redefine how economies and industries work. This paper, as the opening piece of this Special Issue, consists of a bibliometric study of 393 articles linking the Issue’s key themes: Industry 4.0, Sustainability and the Circular Economy. Given that this is still a recent area of the literature, and the fact that it already commands a fast-growing number of publications, the provision of an updated overview of the relevant scientific production in the field is a relevant contribution.

Towards a Conceptual Development of Industry 4.0, Servitisation, and Circular Economy: A Systematic Literature Review

“…Commonly, I4.0 improves online scheduling and monitoring systems by deciding on the most acceptable parameters [32,45,51]. Using a cloud-operated dashboard aids timely service interference for manufacturing process alterations [9,76,77].…”

“…According to Govindan [105], infrastructure creation, policies [106], and laws [107] to promote sustainable businesses are critically regarded as significant for the integration of I4.0 [15,38,48]. It is evident from the analysis that few authors insist about policyenforcement or law binding to make it compulsory for the firms to acquire sustainability in their business model [4,9,77]. Table 4 explores the key studies discussing I4.0 and its impact on CE in detail.…”

“…Therefore, various authors have assessed the correlation among these two most essential paradigms from several perspectives [51,112]. The majority of the papers used a broader view for analysis such as regeneration of the used product or using its component as a by-product for a new product [17,113]; rethinking the BM [4,28,77,114]; reducing the usage of virgin resources [115,116] and enhancing efficiency [17,21]; reusing the used product by outsourcing [108]; repairing and maintenance of a defected product [117]; refurbishing and restoring by upgrading it [77]; remanufacturing, i.e., using a component of the discarded product in a new product with the same functionality [17,33]; repurposing a redundant product with a different functionality [4], and recycling of products or material [102].…”

“…In most papers, researchers have identified that the CE concept extends the product life cycle and that servitisation is the system that facilitates this transition along with the entire lifespan [58,60,61,70,77]. The redesigning of operations has been studied widely in industries such as those relating to textiles [129], architecture [112], clothing [130], etc., where few authors have discussed servitisation as a solution for decreasing environmental risks [43,90,131].…”

Bibliometric Analysis of Specific Energy Consumption (SEC) in Machining Operations: A Sustainable Response

“…The bibliometric analysis has been successfully applied to find the research hotspots in many fields including, optimization techniques in metal cutting operations [37], sustainable development research [38], plasma spray coating techniques [39], green manufacturing [40], global carbon footprint [41], industry 4.0 and sustainability [42], managing for sustainability [43], circular economy, and internet of things [44].…”