PATHFINDER Roadmap: defining research priorities, Driving R&D activities in the Simulation and Forecasting arena

With the Pathfinder mission in mind being:
“To increase knowledge and awareness of, and determine the future use and impact of simulation and forecasting technologies in manufacturing”
the partners in the Pathfinder consortium are working towards meeting three objectives:

To deliver a roadmap pointing out research priorities leading to the next generation simulation and forecasting technologies.
To inform the manufacturing industry on state of the art simulation and forecasting technologies.
To favour the creation of a network of experts.

For meeting the first objective, seven steps have been taken:

A deep analysis of trends, current road-mapping activities and national initiatives, set the basis for the definition of the Pathfinder vision – see Results
The Pathfinder vision (see Results) has been developed in such a way to be consistent with current road-mapping efforts at national and international level (so not to introduce a new vision on manufacturing itself, but to embrace existing activities).
From the vision, the current trends and future envisioned state of Simulation and Forecasting Technologies have been derived.
In parallel, the current state of market practice has been investigated.
By confronting the envisioned future state with the current state of market practice, the road-mapping activity has defined the related Gaps. These can be considered as the missing link between what is currently available and the future envisioned manufacturing scenario.
Identified gaps are a main input for the identification of challenges that are expected to arise for the S&FT innovation need.
Challenges will be addressed by consistently addressing the research priorities identified.

These steps represent the building blocks of the Pathfinder Roadmap. A document describing these building blocks and their interrelation to present the roadmap including the effective presentation of identified challenges and research priorities for future S&FT is available on the Pathfinder website in the Results section.