A foresight strategy proposal for ICT scenarios definitions: An application for PLM tools and systems

Technology foresight has an important role for companies and institutions for make predictions and defines drivers to be leveraged and scenarios to be implemented. Foresight become more relevant in case of organizations working in the development of complex products. The Italian project KHIRA wants to innovate the product design processes using and customizing emerging technologies and providing a unique point of access to all the relevant knowledge for the designers. Several methodologies and technologies are developed in the project KHIRA included a foresight strategy. Based on this assumption, the paper proposes a technological foresight strategy suitable to merge contributions coming from the industrial and academic fields through a combinations of feedbacks and emerging trends. An application of the strategy has been performed to explore evolutions of PLM tools and systems. Reliability and Replication of the strategy are guaranteed trough a careful definition of each step.