Purpose
This paper aims to systematically understand the development of rapid setup, quantitatively analyze the landscape and reveal new trends and challenges.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on 192 literature studies (1987–2021) collected from Scopus and Google Scholar, the papers are classified by: publication time and source; research type and data analysis of papers; pattern of authorship and country; sector-wise focus of the paper; improvement method used in the setup. And CiteSpace is used to analyze the cooccurrence and timeline of keywords.
Findings
There has been substantial progress in the past 35 years, including the rapid growth in the number of papers, the expansion in different disciplines, the participation of developing countries, the application in the service industry and the significant impact of setup on cost. And there are still some deficiencies.
Research limitations/implications
There is concern that Google Scholar lacks the quality control needed for its use as a bibliometric tool. Future work is encouraged to conduct an in-depth discussion on high-quality papers.
Practical implications
In small batch production, rapid setup is increasingly essential. Clarifying the research focus and main improvement methods is of great significance for enterprises to meet the changing market needs.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first literature review on rapid setup. It is decided to consider a detailed set of data for better introspection and trace the history reflections and the research future in setup time.