Industry 4.0: A technological-oriented definition based on bibliometric analysis and literature review

Industry 4.0 was introduced in 2011 and since then has been perceived in multiple ways such as a vision, a paradigm, a scenario or as a digital revolution in production and service organizations. Even though Industry 4.0 is associated with great improvements for companies, there is still a lack of a uniform definition of the term Industry 4.0, especially when it comes to the transfer of knowledge from theoretical research to the implementation in organizations, which leads to confusion and disaffirmation. The lack of a clear structure and a holistic definition of the research topic Industry 4.0 inhibits the development of new business areas and new research approaches. To target this fundamental gap, a methodology is developed and the 338 most relevant publications are analyzed in the database of ScienceDirect starting from 2015. Based on those publications, the field of Industry 4.0 is structured. A consistent and comprehensive definition for Industry 4.0 is introduced by using a bibliometric analysis. Therefore, existing descriptions are decomposed into word fragments and analyzed. It is shown that this novel approach to find a definition for the term “Industry 4.0” does not yet exist. The aim is to provide a purely objective definition based on a statistical evaluation, without restricting the selection of publications to a specific research or business area. Based on those data, a new and ubiquitous definition of Industry 4.0 is formed, discussed and validated on practical examples.