TECHNOLOGY FORECASTING

Objectives/ concepts of Technology Forecasting

• understand the significance and role of

Technology Forecasting in decision making at
corporate level as well as national level

• know the classification and various methods of

Technology Forecasting and their comparative
advantages/disadvantages
There are two approaches to technology
forecasting namely
a) Exploratory, and
b) Normative
Exploratory forecasting, in a way, transcends into
the future from the past performance or
experience.

Its techniques deal with the analysis of the

technological capability, features etc. of the past,
evaluation of the present, looking forward to the
future, taking into account the dynamic
progression which brought us to today's position.
Unlike exploratory forecasting, normative approach begins from the future
and works out desired landmarks backwards to the present state. In other
words, the mind is projected into the future by postulating a desired or
possible state of technological development to satisfy 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 the end
point or goal set hence fore.

However, it must be appreciated that exploratory and normative methods are

not competitive nor do they substitute for one another. Essentially they are
complementary to each other and have to be used together. Usually one does
not attempt to prepare an exploratory forecast of some technology unless
there is a normative forecast that the specific technology will be needed.
Similarly, no one will generally prepare a normative forecast without some
preliminary idea that it may be possible to meet the desired objective.
Different techniques, as shown in Figure 4.1 have
been developed over the years to deal with
forecasting methodologies. The forecaster has to
judiciously select a technique or a combination
of techniques depending upon the methodology
and end objective in view.
The common techniques could be summarised
as follows:
We shall endeavour to describe briefly some of
the corilmonly used techniques; however, you
may refer to literature to get a grasp of the other
higher level forecasting techniques. But before
doing so, we list in Table the Technological
Forecasting (TF) methods used for each of the
four main activities in the business
environment.
An objective forecast should have a sound logical framework to ensure
its repeatability. Formal forecasting techniques are used to replace
subjective opinion with objective data using a replicable method. Even
though objective technique's are desirable, there are three situations in
which expert opinion (subjective or intuitive method) may be resorted
to
i) when there is no historical data, especially situations in which new
technologies are involved; expert opinion is the only possible source for
a forecast,
ii) when impact of external factors is more important than the factors
that governed the previous development of the technology. Under
this condition, forecast using past data is irrelevant,
iii)when ethical considerations rather than technical and economic
considerations govern the development of a technology.
It has been observed that the growth pattern of many
of the biological systems follow an `S' shape curve.
Initially the growth is slow, and then the growth rate
increases and finally levels off into the natural limit.
Fruits, vegetables, population of yeast cells etc. show
an S shaped growth pattern in natural environment
(Please refer to Figure 4.2 in the unit).
The morphological approach, another normative technique, was developed
by Fritz Zincky, and involves a systematic evaluation of all possible
combinations of solutions to individual parts of a whole system. In this
analysis, the whole problem is broken down into parts which could be
treated independently with several solutions to each part. The forecast is
made on the combination of such solutions of each part to satisfy the
desired objective of the whole system. In essence, morphological analysis
and relevance tree could be considered as two faces of the same coin.
`Relevance trees' provides a hierarchical structure while `morphological
model' presents a parallel structure of the problem. In general any system or
problem could be modelled either by a relevance tree or a morphological
structure and the forecaster could choose the appropriate model depending
on the problem on hand. For example, we break our solar car, previously
referred to, into five independent components having a number of solutions
for each as shown in
 4.2 : Break up of Solar Car into Components

Morphology

Solar Panels 1 2 3

Electric Controls 1 2

Motor 1 2 3

Energy Source Solar Cell Storage Battery

Type of Storage Primary Secondary Fuel cell

Battery
Primary
The various types of elements in `energy source' and
"types of storage battery" in morphological model show up
as branches in the Relevance Tree in Figure 4.5. Like the
relevance tree solutions, once the required levels of
functional capabilities are determined by morphological
analysis, they could be utilised for forecasting a feasible
and suitable configuration of a solar car, estimating the
timeframe etc. by obtaining an exploratory forecast of
each of the technologies involved in the elements. Note
that the problem has 3x2x3x2x3=108 solutions of which
some would be rejected immediately based on
technological considerations. Systematic analysis would
tell the forecaster which combinations of solutions of
individual components would provide the desired
satisfaction to meet the objective.
The forecast serves as an input to the process of making plans and
decisions. Martino has described the role of the forecast in planning as
follows :
a)The forecast identifies limits beyond which it is not possible to go,
b) It establishes feasible rates of progress, so that the plan can be made to
take full advantage of such rates; conversely it does not demand an
impossible rate of progress,
c) It describes the alternatives which are open and can be chosen from,
d) It indicates possibilities which might be achieved, if desired,
e) It provides a reference standard for the plan. The plan can thus be
compared with the forecast at any point in time, to determine whether
it can still be fulfilled, or whether, because of changes in the forecast, it
has to be changed, and
f) It furnishes warning signals, which can alert the decision maker that it
will not be possible to continue present activities.