Advancing wooden furniture manufacturing through intelligent manufacturing: the past, recent research activities and future perspectives

With the deep integration of information technology and the manufacturing industry, intelligent manufacturing has become an essential means of transformation and upgrading for the wooden furniture industry. However, the current development status, technological advancements, and future trends of wooden furniture manufacturing have not been comprehensively analyzed. This study employs bibliometrics and visualization techniques to comprehensively review the literature on wooden furniture manufacturing, addressing three main questions: (1) What is the current stage of global wooden furniture intelligent manufacturing development? (2) What are the primary research focuses in global wooden furniture intelligent manufacturing? (3) What should be the future research priorities for global wooden furniture intelligent manufacturing? The results indicate that while scholars have recognized intelligent manufacturing as an effective approach to transforming and upgrading the wooden furniture industry, there remains significant room for development in applying advanced technologies, sustainable development, talent training, management, resource utilization, and market dynamics. Finally, this study proposes a full value chain intelligent manufacturing system for wooden furniture enterprises, encompassing "Intelligent Product Design", "Intelligent Strategic Decision-making", "Intelligent Technology Research and Development", and "Intelligent Manufacturing", which aims to promote the sustainable development of intelligent manufacturing in the global wooden furniture industry.