Major epidemics have had a huge impact on the manufacturing industry. This study aimed to explore knowledge innovation in the field of emergency manufacturing during pandemics with a systematic quantitative analysis.

Based on the Web of Science (WOS) Core Collection, the bibliometric method and the CiteSpace tool were used.

A total of 286 literature were obtained from the WOS database. During coronavirus disease (COVID-19), there was a surge in the number of publications. A new field of research on pandemic-triggered emergency manufacturing is gradually forming with accumulated research output. The analysis of the document co-citation showed how the research on pandemic situations and viruses brought emergency manufacturing into the research scope of scholars, and what attempts were made by the original scholars. Pandemic-triggered research hotspots and research trends in the post-pandemic era mainly boiled down to 3 aspects: technological innovation, material innovation, and management innovation in the field of emergency manufacturing.

COVID-19 strengthened academic exchange and cooperation and promotes knowledge output in this field. This study provides an in-depth perspective for emergency manufacturing research and helps researchers realize the panorama of this field and establish future research directions.