Exploring the Research Trend of Smart Factory with Topic Modeling

Hyun-Lim Yang, Tai-Woo Chang and Yerim Choi
Additional contact information
Hyun-Lim Yang: Department of Information and Communication Engineering, DGIST, Daegu 42988, Korea
Tai-Woo Chang: Department of Industrial and Management Engineering/Intelligence and Manufacturing Research Center, Kyonggi University, Suwon, Gyeonggi 16227, Korea
Yerim Choi: Department of Industrial and Management Engineering/Intelligence and Manufacturing Research Center, Kyonggi University, Suwon, Gyeonggi 16227, Korea

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 8, 1-15

Abstract: Growing competition among manufacturing businesses and the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution has meant that many countries are conducting various research projects to understand how to introduce and populate smart factories. Smart factories are expected to provide a way of solving the manufacturing industries’ complex problems, to take a role in breakthroughs in factories and to carry on a sustainable business. Smart factories are currently in the introduction stage, so we should follow up on the majorities and check their tendencies. However, smart-factory research is an interdisciplinary field that should be studied by researchers with diverse backgrounds in various domains. Thus, studying the past and present overall research trends of smart factory studies is required for their successful introduction and sustainable research. In this study, we explored the research trends of smart factories in both international and specifically Korean research, as an example of a nation case, to determine the major research directions. We determined trends using latent semantic analysis, which is a known topic-modeling technique, and analyzed the trends with regression-based methods. As a result, we could read the clear trends by analyzing existing studies related to smart factories. In addition, it is possible to compare research trends in Korea and international research trends for the commonly appeared topics, such as ‘ICT’ (Information and Communications Technology) and ‘R&D (Research and Development)/Technology Innovation’. We expect that the quantitative analysis results and suggestions presented in this study can be used to formulate strategies for the future diffusion of smart factories.

Keywords: research trend analysis; smart factory; industry 4.0; topic modeling; latent semantic analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/8/2779/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/8/2779/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:8:p:2779-:d:162190

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().