---
title: "Industry 4.0 research: papers, trends and top journals"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “Industry 4.0” appeared in 1,113 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in operations research (473), management (294) and information systems (172)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/industry-4-0
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/industry-4-0.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “Industry 4.0” appeared in 1,113 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in operations research (473), management (294) and information systems (172). (as of 2026-11-04)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-04T00:03:46+09:00
window: 2026-10-06 to 2026-11-04
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “Industry 4.0”

Research on “Industry 4.0” in the 480 tracked journals: papers per year and category, the journals, institutions and countries publishing it, the keywords studied with it and its most-cited papers. It is not among the most frequent keywords of the last 30 days, so this page has no list of its latest papers.

Back to the ranking: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/keywords.md

## Key findings

- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “Industry 4.0” appeared in 1,113 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in operations research (473), management (294) and information systems (172).
- 140 of them were published in 2025, against 17 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (15), Hong Kong Polytechnic University (14) and University of Naples Federico II (12).
- The journals publishing most of them were Computers & Industrial Engineering (85), Journal of Industrial Information Integration (63) and Technological Forecasting and Social Change (38).
- The most-cited of them is “Industry 4.0: A survey on technologies, applications and open research issues” (Journal of Industrial Information Integration, 2017), with 3,012 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 4 | 23 | 29 | 40 | 43 | 81 | 81 | 79 | 63 | 30 |
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 4 | 8 | 10 | 19 | 71 | 52 | 47 | 33 | 30 | 20 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 3 | 6 | 11 | 16 | 27 | 19 | 18 | 35 | 26 | 11 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 6 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 21 | 20 | 13 | 17 | 13 | 7 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 0 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 7 | 6 | 5 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 1 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 3 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| All categories | 17 | 40 | 57 | 87 | 172 | 180 | 167 | 176 | 140 | 77 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Computers & Industrial Engineering](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-industrial-engineering.md) | 85 |
| 2 | [Journal of Industrial Information Integration](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-industrial-information-integration.md) | 63 |
| 3 | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 38 |
| 4 | [International Journal of Production Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-production-economics.md) | 38 |
| 5 | [Annals of Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/annals-of-operations-research.md) | 37 |
| 6 | [Expert Systems with Applications](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/expert-systems-with-applications.md) | 31 |
| 7 | [Operations Management Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/operations-management-research.md) | 26 |
| 8 | [Journal of Open Innovation Technology Market and Complexity](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-open-innovation-technology-market-and-complexity.md) | 17 |
| 9 | [Flexible Services and Manufacturing Journal](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/flexible-services-and-manufacturing-journal.md) | 14 |
| 10 | [Technovation](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technovation.md) | 13 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/centre-national-de-la-recherche-scientifique.md) | 15 |
| 2 | [Hong Kong Polytechnic University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/hong-kong-polytechnic-university.md) | 14 |
| 3 | [University of Naples Federico II](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-naples-federico-ii.md) | 12 |
| 4 | [NEOMA Business School](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/neoma-business-school.md) | 9 |
| 5 | O. P. Jindal Global University | 9 |
| 6 | [Symbiosis International University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/symbiosis-international-university.md) | 8 |
| 7 | Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul | 8 |
| 8 | Universitat Politècnica de València | 8 |
| 9 | Indian Institute of Technology Delhi | 7 |
| 10 | Management Development Institute | 7 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | India | 104 |
| 2 | China | 89 |
| 3 | Italy | 77 |
| 4 | United Kingdom | 66 |
| 5 | United States | 56 |
| 6 | France | 50 |
| 7 | Spain | 37 |
| 8 | Australia | 32 |
| 9 | Germany | 32 |
| 10 | Brazil | 31 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Internet of Things](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/internet-of-things.md) | 65 |
| 2 | [digital transformation](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/digital-transformation.md) | 62 |
| 3 | Industry 5.0 | 49 |
| 4 | [digital twin](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/digital-twin.md) | 47 |
| 5 | [artificial intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/artificial-intelligence.md) | 43 |
| 6 | smart manufacturing | 40 |
| 7 | [blockchain](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/blockchain.md) | 36 |
| 8 | [circular economy](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/circular-economy.md) | 35 |
| 9 | [small and medium-sized enterprises](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/small-and-medium-sized-enterprises.md) | 30 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3,012 | 26.3 | [Industry 4.0: A survey on technologies, applications and open research issues](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jii.2017.04.005) | [Journal of Industrial Information Integration](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-industrial-information-integration.md) | 2017-04-17 | Yang Lu |
| 2 | 2,953 | 31.5 | [Industry 4.0 technologies: Implementation patterns in manufacturing companies](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2019.01.004) | [International Journal of Production Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-production-economics.md) | 2019-01-09 | Alejandro Germán Frank, Lucas Santos Dalenogare, Néstor Fabián Ayala |
| 3 | 2,199 | 22.3 | [The expected contribution of Industry 4.0 technologies for industrial performance](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2018.08.019) | [International Journal of Production Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-production-economics.md) | 2018-08-20 | Lucas Santos Dalenogare, Guilherme Brittes Benitez, Néstor Fabián Ayala et al. |
| 4 | 1,891 | 30.1 | [Industry 5.0: A survey on enabling technologies and potential applications](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jii.2021.100257) | [Journal of Industrial Information Integration](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-industrial-information-integration.md) | 2021-08-11 | Praveen Kumar Reddy Maddikunta, Quoc‐Viet Pham, B. Prabadevi et al. |
| 5 | 1,428 | 18.3 | [Industry 4.0 technologies assessment: A sustainability perspective](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpe.2020.107776) | [International Journal of Production Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-production-economics.md) | 2020-05-06 | Chunguang April Bai, Patrick Dallasega, Guido Orzes et al. |

## Research ideas that follow this keyword

- [Industry 4.0 for small manufacturers: adoption without engineers](https://scholar4ai.com/ideas/industry-4-for-smes.md)

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “Industry 4.0”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/industry-4-0

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-industry-4-0,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “Industry 4.0”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/industry-4-0}},
  urldate = {2026-11-04},
  note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).