Examining the synergies between industry 4.0 and sustainability dimensions using text mining, sentiment analysis, and association rules

Abstract

The transformation to Industry 4.0 has significantly revolutionized manufacturing and production processes, raising important questions about their impact on sustainability. This study aims to explore the interplay between Industry 4.0 and the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of sustainability. The methodological approach includes advanced text-mining, sentiment analysis, and association rule-mining techniques to examine 6,759 abstracts from the Scopus database. The text mining highlighted frequent keywords related to Industry 4.0 and the three sustainability dimensions, characterized by “economic growth,” “circular economy,” “social responsibility,” “education 4.0,” “energy efficiency,” and “waste management.” Sentiment analysis revealed a predominantly positive perspective, with 2,608 positive sentiments out of 2,761 in the economic dimension, 1,604 out of 1,728 in the social dimension, and 1,352 out of 1,527 in the environmental dimension. The association rule mining uncovered the associations between Industry 4.0 and each sustainability dimension. The highest support was observed between Industry 4.0 and economic sustainability, with a support value of 0.444, confidence of 0.855, and a lift of 1.060. These findings highlight the role of Industry 4.0 in promoting resource efficiency and reducing waste through circular economy principles and advanced manufacturing technologies. For the social dimension, the analysis revealed a strong association with Industry 4.0 (support: 0.430, confidence: 0.831, lift: 1.030), emphasizing its role in enhancing worker safety and job satisfaction by automating hazardous tasks and creating new high-tech job opportunities. In the environmental dimension, a significant association was found (support: 0.380, confidence: 0.827, lift: 1.024), showing Industry 4.0′s contribution to sustainability through optimized energy consumption and emissions reduction as the integration of big data and IoT enables real-time monitoring of environmental impacts. The rule combining economic and social aspects with Industry 4.0 (support: 0.219, confidence: 0.87, lift: 1.078) highlights the interconnected nature of these dimensions, suggesting many studies consider economic and social dimensions together in the Industry 4.0 context.