ICT as Critical Driver - Post Mass Production Paradigm (PMPP) Trajectories

Within the past decades, developments in manufacturing have been turbulent and radical. For the manufacturing and management sciences, revolutionary changes took place. Based on Kuhn’s findings on the nature of scientific revolutions, the paper consolidates projections for future developments in manufacturing by exploiting interactions of the most important drivers of these developments. Major trajectories are drawn, considered to be significant for future manufacturing structures using expert session results on manufacturing scenarios. Effects of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are strongly emphasised. The outline intends to support strategic decision making in manufacturing companies. The methods sketched and applied with groups of scientists, experts and companies’ executives can be adopted for individual company strategy definitions.