Exploring uncharted territories of sustainable manufacturing: A cutting-edge AI approach to uncover hidden research avenues in green innovations

Abstract

Research on sustainable manufacturing is currently gaining momentum and becoming a dynamically developing field that considers green innovations (GI). However, rapid dynamics cause the entire field to fragment into smaller topics with different research interests, impacts, and development dynamics over time. This study aims to create a comprehensive scientific map of GI in manufacturing by systematically processing 9376 documents retrieved from the Scopus database. The results show that this research domain gained significant momentum in 2019, with most studies published in the engineering and business subject area. Latent Dirichlet Allocation was used to identify 94 unique topics from all abstracts. We classified the topics into five territories regarding their level of systematization: uncharted (26 topics), discovering (23), expanding (15), well-recognized (19), and marginal (11). The least uncharted topics in the field of GI in manufacturing that have potential for systematization are Resource-based Performance Modeling, Sustainability-oriented Performance, and Supplier Decision Criteria and Fuzzy Logic. The most significant topics related to GI in manufacturing currently include Smart Technologies and Industry 4.0, Green Supply Chain, Carbon Emission Reduction, and Digital Transformation, with the last two having the most dynamic development. The results offer objective information for a wider scientific discussion regarding the direction of research in green manufacturing concept and point to uncharted areas that may represent future directions for the development of this concept.