Discover the trend and evolution of sustainable manufacturing: a thematic and bibliometric analysis

Manufacturing, as one of the most important sectors in a civilized society, has a strong impact on our city’s sustainability issues, and it is therefore justified in taking a more sustainable approach in the future. As a consequence, research works and the research trend of sustainable manufacturing (SM) play a critical role in supporting the sustainable development of industries. With the knowledge of the research themes on SM from the past to the present, preferred options for planning the future of manufacturing and executing SM could be offered to industries. Motivated by this, this study presents a thematic and bibliometric analysis on research papers of SM, with the goal of providing an overall overview of SM research trends, as well as identifying the critical time of having major breakthroughs and evolution of the corresponding research works by comparing the research themes across the longitudinal timeline. A thematic analysis was used to determine the keywords and main themes of the research on SM in various time frames, as well as the perspectives on how the research works in relation to current technology and dynamic changes. Finally, the three stages of SM research were determined based on the overall results. Furthermore, this article demonstrates the research directions and advancements of SM in 2020, presenting the most recent research trends in SM to both industry and academia.