Background: Risk-based maintenance (RBM) establishes a framework for optimizing maintenance strategies and decision-making processes. This review study presents a bibliometric analysis of peer-reviewed research in risk-based maintenance literature over recent decades. The main objective is to identify the most relevant research and the newest trends in the field, according to the information found in databases.
Methods: This study uses bibliometric methods to examine 486 publications in the Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus databases up to 21 July 2024. With the help of VOSviewer software, bibliographic connections between these publications are visualized.
Results: The analysis reveals a significant increase in publications on this topic in the past decade, with China, the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Germany being the leading contributors. A large portion of the relevant documents comes from articles in the Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, with conferences being the most popular medium for sharing industry knowledge. Furthermore, the co-citation network of references reveals seven clusters: Risk Assessment, Risk-Based Maintenance, Decision Making, Inspection, Reliability and Failure Analysis, Maintenance Strategies, and Predictive Maintenance. Each cluster emphasizes strategic planning and the role of risk management in optimizing maintenance processes. Four visual outputs generated by VOSviewer—network map, overlay map, density map, and co-citation network—illustrate the relationships between scholarly articles and the interconnectedness of influential works.
Conclusion: These visualizations highlight the multifaceted nature of RBM research and provide a framework for future investigations aimed at enhancing maintenance strategies across various industries. This analysis serves as a foundational resource for researchers and practitioners seeking to navigate the landscape of RBM, guiding future research directions and practical applications.