A science mapping study on learning factories research

Learning factories are a rising and promising environment for engineering education, training, and research. Practical interest in learning factories has peaked in recent years, attracting the worldwide attention of scholars and practitioners. This study conducts a scientometric review of the global research published since 1995 on learning factories, through co-citation, keyword and clustering analysis. A total of 367 journal papers and conference proceedings from the Scopus database were analyzed, to distinguish key publications and main research trends. By performing a mapping exercise, a detailed analysis of the learning factories’ literature enables academic support for future research. The provided results are used to identify the main areas of contribution of learning factories research and understand the potential gaps in current research.