Details:
Summary:
At TAGA in 1969 Scheid introduced technoeconomic and Bulloff introduced technological forecasting. The latter, broader, but more detailed, is more usually applied in planning of research and development for new products, processes, and systems. Usually four component forecasts are made and then reconciled into a single consistent forecast - a normative and an exploratory technical forecast. In exploratory forecasting, current and prospective economic and technical trends apparent in the current state of the art are projected into the future using extrapolative and more sophisticated techniques. In normal forecasting, goals or missions accepted as desired are projected backwards to determine possible starting points for their attainment. Both kinds of forecasts have to be analyzed creatively and imagineered knowledgeably to anticipate possible right angle turns and sudden sidesteps of entire technologies that might reside in the future of the area of forecast. Once this is done for all four component forecasts, and for their integration into a single integrated forecast where all the components are reconciled with respect to time, cost, and sequencing of effort, the forecast tends to be maximally surprise free. Planning of research and development can then be made with a much higher degree of confidence, especially if technical and economic feasibility seem larger at the end of the forecasting and planning period than at the beginning of it. The large bibliography keys key publication on forecasting and planning techniques and information. Reference to this paper will only rarely make it necessary for the reader to search independently the literature published before 1970. Bibliographic references for additional literature research are included here also.