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Topic · Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems

Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems is a research topic within Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering. Science Explorer counts 34k research works in it since 1950. 9.9% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

This cluster of papers focuses on the design, operation, and optimization of reconfigurable manufacturing systems, emphasizing flexibility, scalability, and adaptability in industrial automation. It covers topics such as agent-based control systems, virtual commissioning, modular production, and the use of OPC UA in cyber-physical production systems.

  • Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems
  • Flexible Automation
  • Industrial Automation
  • Production Ramp-Up
  • Software Engineering
  • Agent-Based Control Systems
  • Modular Production
  • Virtual Commissioning
  • Model-Integrated Mechatronics
  • OPC UA
Research works
34k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
3.3k
per year above
Top-10% rate
9.9%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
+3%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
Germany
54% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems

Which countries lead Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems research?

By volume, Germany and China publish the most (2.5k and 489 works in 2022-now).

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Germany 2.5k works
  2. 2 China 489 works
  3. 3 United States 409 works
  4. 4 Italy 221 works
  5. 5 India 219 works
  6. 6 France 201 works
  7. 7 Austria 188 works
  8. 8 United Kingdom 152 works
  9. 9 Spain 114 works
  10. 10 Switzerland 95 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

Germany: 54.0%China: 10.8%United States: 9.0%Italy: 4.9%6 others listed: 21.3%54%largest
Germany2,450 · 54.0%China489 · 10.8%United States409 · 9.0%Italy221 · 4.9%6 others listed967 · 21.3%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems research?

By volume in 2022-now, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft publishes the most Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems research, followed by RWTH Aachen University and Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Fraunhofer-GesellschaftGermany 183 works
  2. 2 RWTH Aachen UniversityGermany 134 works
  3. 3 Helmholtz Association of German Research CentresGermany 87 works
  4. 4 University of StuttgartGermany 83 works
  5. 5 Technical University of MunichGermany 75 works
  6. 6 Technische Universität DresdenGermany 66 works
  7. 7 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 51 works
  8. 8 Technische Universität DarmstadtGermany 47 works
  9. 9 TU Dortmund UniversityGermany 42 works
  10. 10 Leibniz University HannoverGermany 42 works

Who are the leading researchers in Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems?

The most-cited researchers publishing on Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems include Matthias Egger, Marko Sarstedt and Christian M. Ringle.

  1. 1 Matthias Egger Switzerland 326k citations
  2. 2 Marko Sarstedt Germany 221k citations
  3. 3 Christian M. Ringle Germany 215k citations
  4. 4 Seeram Ramakrishna Singapore 186k citations
  5. 5 Kalyanmoy Deb United States 171k citations
  6. 6 Joseph F. Hair United States 163k citations

Ranked by citations received across their whole record, among researchers with at least three works on this topic.

What are the most cited papers in Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems?

The most cited paper in Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems is "A Cyber-Physical Systems architecture for Industry 4.0-based manufacturing systems" (Jay K. Lee, Behrad Bagheri, Hung-An Kao, 2014), with 5,033 citations. Next come "Digital Twin in Industry: State-of-the-Art" (4,318) and "Industry 4.0" (4,243).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 A Cyber-Physical Systems architecture for Industry 4.0-based manufacturing systems Jay K. Lee, Behrad Bagheri, Hung-An Kao · Manufacturing Letters 10 Dec 2014 5,033
2 Digital Twin in Industry: State-of-the-Art Fei Tao, He Zhang, Ang Liu et al. · IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics Apr 2019 4,318
3 Industry 4.0 Heiner Lasi, Peter Fettke, Hans-Georg Kemper et al. · Business & Information Systems Engineering 19 Jun 2014 4,243
4 Digital Twin in manufacturing: A categorical literature review and classification Werner Kritzinger, Matthias Karner, Georg Traar et al. · IFAC-PapersOnLine Open access 2018 3,455
5 Industry 4.0: state of the art and future trends Li Da Xu, Eric Li Xu, Ling Li · International Journal of Production Research 9 Mar 2018 3,210
All 100 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems research done?

The largest centres of Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems research in 2022-now are Stuttgart (Germany), Munich (Germany), Aachen (Germany) and Berlin (Germany). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in Wismar.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 StuttgartGermany 212 works
  2. 2 MunichGermany 191 works
  3. 3 AachenGermany 173 works
  4. 4 BerlinGermany 108 works
  5. 5 KarlsruheGermany 99 works
  6. 6 BeijingChina 98 works
  7. 7 HamburgGermany 94 works
  8. 8 ViennaAustria 80 works
  9. 9 DresdenGermany 75 works
  10. 10 DortmundGermany 72 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. WismarDE · 24.1 works304×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems than the world average.

See Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems on the map

Where is the best place to study Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems?

Among universities, judged by research, University of Patras, Hong Kong Polytechnic University and Politecnico di Milano score highest, combining excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%20%40%mean 21.63%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →University of PatrasHong Kong Polytechni…Beihang UniversityPolitecnico di Milano
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
40%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
10%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
30%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
10%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
10%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreTop 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1University of PatrasGreece 61.139.9%12.7×18 -38.2%
2Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityChina 58.835.0%2.2×10 +215.0%
3Politecnico di MilanoItaly 57.225.7%9.0×34 -7.7%
4Beihang UniversityChina 56.134.6%2.9×17 +26.6%
5Macau University of Science and TechnologyChina 53.519.0%8.9×10 +22.2%
6Politecnico di TorinoItaly 53.231.5%5.9×14 +22.7%
7RWTH Aachen UniversityGermany 48.46.4%32.9×134 -22.2%
8University of StuttgartGermany 47.58.1%46.1×83 -6.0%
9Technische Universität DresdenGermany 47.48.1%22.6×66 +1.3%
10Technical University of MunichGermany 47.18.0%16.3×75 -17.1%

Universities only. The score blends excellence (40%), size (30%), specialisation (10%), growth (10%), international reach (10%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise.

Every institution in Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems, country by country

Is Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 3% higher than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2024. The fastest-growing topics are Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.026% in 2024.

still counting0.020%0.040%0.060%Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems0.024% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%Flexible and Reconfigurable Manufacturing Systems9.7% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

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