Nowadays we live in a world, which a decade ago would only be described in the science fiction literature. More and more things become smart and both scientists and engineers strive for developing not only new and innovative devices, but also homes, factories, or even cities. Despite of continuous development, many of those concepts are still being just a vision of the future, which still needs a lot of effort to become true.
This paper reviews the usage of adjective smart in respect to technology and with a special emphasis on the smart factory concept placement among contemporary studies. Due to a lack of a consensus of common understanding of this term, a unified definition is proposed. The conceptualization will not only refer to various smart factory visions reported in the literature, but also link the crucial characteristics of this emerging manufacturing concept to usual manufacturing practice. Subsequently, the authors discuss the challenges of the potential smart factory applications in SMEs, and also propose a future research outlook in order to further develop the smart factory concept.