Recent Developments on Flexible Manufacturing in the Digital Era: A Review and Future Research Directions

The purpose of this research was to identify trending topics, emerging themes, and future research areas in flexible manufacturing in the digital era. It includes a synthesis of 51 published articles; 38,671 tweets; and expert opinions from various social media platforms, including blogs and forums on flexible manufacturing. Using latent Dirichlet allocation, the study highlights six flexible manufacturing in the digital era themes: (1) smart factories, digital twins, and flexible manufacturing; (2) flexible manufacturing and sustainability; (3) supply chain flexibility and resilience; (4) the dark side of flexible manufacturing; (5) flexible and lean manufacturing; and (6) infrastructure challenges and the realm of flexible manufacturing. Rather than focusing exclusively on aggregate impacts, this study combines the outcome of multiple databases and presents a comprehensive framework that covers the drivers, processes, and impacts of each theme, suggesting avenues for future research. The findings will help managers be better equipped to identify possible issues and areas for improvement by giving them a thorough understanding of the drivers, processes and outcomes indicated in the framework. The insights gained from this study are valuable to researchers and policymakers, as they enable them to leverage the latest developments in flexible manufacturing in the digital era and effectively address current and future challenges. © 2023, The Author(s) under exclusive licence to Global Institute of Flexible Systems Management.