1. TECHNOLOGY FORECASTING
Introduction:-
Technological
forecast is a prediction of the future characteristics of useful machines, products,
process, procedure or techniques. This implies following two points
1. A
technological forecast deals with certain characteristics such as levels of
technical performances (eg. speed power, safety). Role of technological
advances (introduction of paperless) office, picture phone new materials, costs,
etc). The forecaster need not state how these characteristics will be achieved.
His forecast may even predict characteristics which are beyond the present
means of performing some of these functions .However ,it is not within his
scope to suggest how these limitations will be overcome.
2. Technological
forecasting also deals with useful machines, procedures, or techniques.
Technology forecast and technology innovation chain:-
There are five stages of any technological
innovations
1. Basic scientific findings /discovery of a principle:-
These establish minimum knowledge on basis of sound
scientific principles from which a solution to specific problems could be found.
2. Laboratory
or bench level feasibility:-
At these stages depending on the identified problems, a
laboratory workable model could be found /fabricated without violating any
natural physical laws this would generally be able to work in the desired way
only in laboratory environment, under control conditions and supervision of
trained scientists, technology, and technician.
3. Operating
prototype /pilot plant:-
On reaching these stages it would be possible to obtain
design/ engineering Parameters to construct a device/ system which would be
capable of working in an operational environment using commercially available
inputs.
4. Commercial
introduction /operational use:-
This stage represents not only technical and design adequacy,
but also economical feasibility. Generally, first production model is benchmark
of completion of this stage.
5. Widespread
adoption:-
At this stage having demonstrated the technical and
/economic And / environmental superiority, the technology is now poised to
supershed and replaces Prior devices, procedures, etc on a wide scale.
6. Diffusion
to other areas:-
At this stage new technology not only replaces old one
,but it is also adopted to perform such function as were not being performed by
earlier devices techniques .
7. Social
and economic impact:-
At this stage, the innovations will affect the
behaviour of the society and its use may reach point where its impact will be felt
by society.
2. Necessity of technology
forecasting:_
Historically
US
navy was one of major institutions which started formal technological
forecasting to support the preparation of 15 year plan to identify likely opportunities
and threats and to develop technological setting for future. Technology
forecasting has now assumed importance in India due to structural reform
introduced In our economic system with a view to create market driven economy. Essentially
the Technology forecasting is used for purpose of
1. scanning the technological environment
2. anticipating emerging technological
changes
3. identifying suitable technologies by
evaluating various alternatives
4. scanning for technologies for future
needs
We
can identify four elements of forecast which can be specified and/or estimated.
These are
1. Time period
2. Nature of technology
3.
Characteristic to be exhibited by
technology
4. Probability associated with
characteristics
The
time period may be stated generally or it may be given precisely The technology.
Being forecast may be narrowly defined or it may encompass very broad range The
characteristic may be stated only in general terms or may be given precise
quantitative values The probability associated with characteristic may be given
only generally, as high or low or it may be stated in precise quantitative
terms and for each of these elements of forecast ,degree of precision may vary
anywhere between two end points of generality and precision .The precision
associated with each element of forecast should be determined by use to which forecast
will be put The forecast should be thus tailored to the decisions making
situation and precision associated with of the elements should be appropriate
to this situations
There may be three types of situations:-
1. Absolutely no control
2. Partial control
3. Full control
We
would attempt to analyses the efficacy of forecasting in the Situations.
1. Absolutely
no control :-
Let
us consider a commuter seeking a forecast of the commercial availability of a
solar powered car, say by year 2000. While he might seek the forecast out of
simple curiosity, more likely he wants to make plans for some activity which
will be affected by this forecast, say whether to buy a petrol driven car or
not .Naturally he wants. To plan correctly, for if he bases his plans on a
forecast of a solar or becoming wailable. And it does not materialize, the
forecast has been useless to him or worse ,it has misled him into foregoing his
buying a petrol car.
2. Partial
control:-
Most
day to day decisions fall in the area of partial control over outcome .The
decision maker is interested in influencing the out come of situation in away
as favourable as possible to him .If he is presented with a forecast which he
considers desirable, he will exert such control as he possesses to ensure that
the forecast is realized, Thus influencing either reliability or time frame of
the forecast.
3. Full
control:-
All
the other extreme, when decision maker has complete control over the outcome, he
does not even need a forecast The outcome will be what he wants it to be
.Someone else may perhaps find a forecast of his decision useful, but he
himself does not need a forecast of what he is going to do.
3. Role of technology forecasting
The
forecast serves as an input to process of making plans and decisions. The role
of forecast in is as follows:-
1. The forecast identifies the limits
beyond which it is not possible to go;
2. It establishes
feasible rates of progress, so that the plan can be made to take advantages of
such rates; conversely it does not demand an impossible rate of progress.
3. It describes the alternatives which are
open and can be chosen from;
4. It indicates possibilities which might
be achieved; if desired;
5. It provides a
reference standard for a plan .The plan thus can be compared with the forecast
at any point of time ,to determine whether
it can still be fulfilled or whether, because of changes in the forecast, it
has to be changed, and
6. It furnishes warning
signals, which can alert the decision maker that it will not be possible to
continue the present activities. Thus the purpose of the forecast is to be improving
the quality of his decisions.
4. Classification of technology forecasting
approaches
There are two approaches to
technology forecasting, namely
1. Exploratory
2. Normative
1. Exploratory forecasting in to the future from the post performance or
experience Its technology deals with the analysis of the technological capability ,features etc of the past
,evaluation of the present ,looking forward to the future taking in to account
the dynamic progression which brought us today’s position .
2. Unlike
exploratory forecasting, the normative approach
begins from future and works out desired land works backwards to the present state .In other words the mind is
projected in to the future by
postulating a desired or possible state of technological development to specify a specific need the
forecaster then works backwards to identify the steps or landmarks necessary to
be achieved with assessed level of probability, in order to reach end point or
goal set hence fore
Thus the above two approaches are not competitive.
They do not substitute one another. Essentially they are complementary to each
other and have to be used together.
Methodologies of forecasting:-
Different
techniques have been developed over the years to deal with forecasting
methodologies .The forecaster has to judiciously select a techniques or a
combinations of techniques depending on the methodology and the end objective
in to view.
Use of combination of methods will
generally be more reliable than dependence on a single parameter or single
forecasting methods. It may be useful to have the user of a technology,
generator of a technology, manufacturer’s suppliers and designers involved in
an integrated exercise to shape the combined perspective in to forecast.
5. TECHNOLOGICAL
FORECASTING METHODS
Some
of the TF methods are now elaborated in this section
1. Brain
storming (BS)
This is the oldest method for forecasting it is conducted by a
group of people to forecast about a specific technology by a collecting or
contributing all the ideas spontaneously. The basis of the method is that the
ideas should not be evaluated at the generation stage during many new ideas
emerge. Thus, there is a separation of the idea generation and evaluation
stages. The reason for this is that new ideas can emanate even people who even
though not have through expertise in given field. The major objective of BS is
to stimulate the generation of ides on given technology. It does not matter
even if they are wild, highly impractical or exotic. Ideas are formed /offered
spontaneously in a relatively unstructured environmental. After they have been
presented, they analysed and evaluation is carried out in depth.
Steps involved in Brain Storming (B.S.) :-
1. Identification
of a person as a group leader .It is necessary that he is chosen by his age or
his position or seniority or expertise in the technology, he must have the
requisite experiences of integrating or channeling ideas to lead to solution.
2. Identification
of the problems by a group so that the multiple dimensions of the problems
involved are carely highlighted
3. Definition
and redefinition of the problems so that it is unambiguously understood by the
group possible solution are deliberately avoided.
4. Idea
generation process is initiated .Once number of ideas are collected, a number
of triggering questions are initiated to help combine ideas or approaches.
5. The
recorded ideas are reviewed, classified and streamlined in to related ideas and
clusters.
6. Rearranged
ideas are evaluated, possibly through reverse brainstorming that is the series of
eliminating questions .Least favored ideas are rejected. Preferred once are analyzed
and forecast are prepared in consultation with other functional efforts .The
structure of the problem solving group is a major factor which determines the
goodness of forecast .A group, to be effective, has to have a variety of
people, such as
a.
Users of tech
b Expert,
knowledgeable in tech
c
Expert, knowledgeable in market
d
Economists /financials analysts
e
Dreamers with new ideas
f
Persuaders who can help
acceptance of idea
g
Technology forecaster and consultants
Based on experience it has been
found out that the session could be structured, to some extent to facilitate
the solution of the problem during BS .This in away involves first establishing
a method for obtaining a variety of emergent ideas and then converging it on to
the given solution.
Application of Brain storming (B.S.):-
It has been applied to a wide rang
of R&D, technological and business problem solving. This method has been used for following purposes
namely,
a)
for obtaining new ideas of
products /processes /services /procedures
b)
for over coming new uses or market
segments
c) for over coming bottles necks
d) for identifying alternative options or
methods
The group can have 5 to10 members. If there
are more than 10 members, the processing of the proposed ideas become
difficult. In some cases, the outsiders are used as leaders.
Advantages and disadvantages:-
The
advantage of B.S. is that it is easy to organize and the resources needed are
the modest. But it requires and experienced person to conduct it. A number of
sessions are required since at the initial stages the participants are
skeptical or hesitant sufficient time is needed for organizing a brainstorming
exercise.
Further, a considerable preparation
has to be made before the actual exercise begins.
B) Delphi technique:-
a)
Anonymity
b) Iteration with controlled feed back and
C) Statistical
group response taking in to consideration minority views. The detailed steps
involved in a Delphi exercise are as follows:-
1) Identify the specific area or field in
which Delphi exercise has to be carried out.
2) Identify
a set of user, technology generations /experts/equipment manufacturers,
development bankers and social scientists and others who can help in preparing
a set of questions for forecasting technological developments in the given
area.
3) A
small core group is formed to prepare the questionnaire with the help of persons
at step 2 to cover among other the desirability of the technological
development, it feasibility, time frame and recourse needed for commercial use,
and impact.
4) The
questionnaire is then administered to a number of participants to cover a wide
cross–section of interests.
5) The
first round responses for the questionnaire is obtained and processed, where in
minority and even extreme views etc. are also included.
6) The
second round questionnaire is sent back to the participants to give there revised
comments.
7) The second round result is than
processed to get the consensus results.
Thus, Delphi
provides a consensus view based on the opinion of a large number of
participants and can be considered as a way of combining /integrating
forecasts.
Application of Delphi
Technique:-
The Delphi
method is used to:-
a) Identify
new factor likely to influence the future sate of technological development;
b) Obtain
probabilistic estimates of technological performance over a specified time horizon;
c) Obtain
forecasts of a time scale foe an event where other methods can not be used;
d) Ascertain
the feasibility of a given event occurring under specified conditions; and
e) Obtain
subjective quantitative measures of technological performance in the absence of
objective data.
The preparation of the questionnaire
has to be done very carefully and should, among other conditions, ensure that:-
a) The issues are unambiguously specified
b) The
questions are un conditional and not interlinked to conditionality specified
elsewhere
c) The
definition of probability for occurrence of an event etc. sought in a question
should be clearly defined /explained.
Advantages:-
It is a useful technique for
a) Obtaining forecasts when there is a
limited amount of historical data, and
b) For
fields which are highly interactive and interdisciplinary involving diverse
parameters such as social, economic, political and managerial.
Disadvantages:-
a) It
does not have any logic underlying each prediction and if repeated, it may not 5
reproducible results and
b) Although
it may produce a high degree of convergence yet this convergence does not imply
high degree of reliability.
6. Conclusion
Today is an era of global
competition & Companies are implementing new technique and methods to
reduce cost of manufacturing and increase productivity and in turn
profitability. One of the best solution to this problem is Technology Forecasting i.e. T.F.
T.F is totally new approach which
really worth and worth. It is a concept that goes beyond conventional method and
approaches of maintenance activities. It provides new idea which can prevent
further crisis.
Both B.S. and D.T. if use
successfully they provide new idea of activities that prevents quality defects
breakdown, makes work easier.
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