Industrial fire detection and suppression equipment is in a very odd position in the context of smart manufacturing. You have to improve throughput and traceability but you absolutely cannot compromise the independent evidence that is required to demonstrate the safety-critical performance of the equipment. This review looks at how Industry 4.0 technologies can be applied to the engineering, fabrication, assembly, verification and lifecycle support of detectors, fire alarm control panels, extinguishing valves and all the associated suppression hardware in the Kingdom. It is a critical review of the peer-reviewed literature published between 2020 and 2025 with an emphasis on digital twins, industrial connectivity, automated inspection, fire sensing and the wider context of industrial transformation. It is not a case of equating digitalisation with safety. The review makes a clear distinction between production process intelligence and product function assurance and identifies five such capabilities: a requirements controlled digital thread, instrumented fabrication, risk sensitive quality analytics, independent safety verification and post delivery learning. A six stage transformation framework is proposed which embeds regulatory evidence and human authority at all stages of the process. The argument is that Saudi manufacturers should put in place interoperable product records and validated end of line test results before they go any further and start to deploy adaptive optimisation at scale. Testable indicators are provided and a staged implementation pathway is outlined. The output is a product specific, safety governed account of smart manufacturing rather than an empirical claim that the framework has in fact improved the performance of any fire system.