Lean Manufacturing: A Bibliometric Analysis, 1970 2020

The study aims to investigate lean manufacturing from a bibliometric perspective. A systematic analysis was performed on 1893 documents extracted from the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science (WoS) Collection under the “Lean Manufacturing” (LM) subject category between 1970 to 2020. The R programming is utilized for determining the evolution and progress of lean through the topmost contributing publications, authors, journals, and countries. The network representation is performed using VOS viewer, highlighting the focus areas of LM with co-occurrence, co-citation, and bibliographical coupling of the extracted data. The results indicate LM was initially focused predominantly on topics such as lean thinking and organizational performance by various authors. Later, the LM topic was integrated with six sigma, sustainability, and environmental assessments for overall process improvements. The major contributors in this research area are the United States of America and India. The study attempts to fully comprehend LM, its application, and trends to promote further research.