Trends Identified
Additive Manufacturing in 2030: how the next Gutenberg revolution may bring production
back to Europe
Additive Manufacturing (AM, also referred to as 3D printing) refers to the process by which three-dimensional products are built from the bottom up, adding material layer-by-layer on the basis of a digital file. Through this additive approach it is possible to manufacture complex shapes and intricate parts at near 100% material utilisation that could not have been made by traditional means. Due to its flexibility, its potential to fundamentally alter the production cycle and to ‘democratise manufacturing’, some believe AM and 3D printing to be the precursor of an ‘Industry 4.0’, a shift to a digitalised, automated and data-oriented manufacturing industry.
2016
Global Trendometer - essays on medium- and long-term global trends
European Strategy and Policy Analysis System (ESPAS)
Additive manufacturing
Companies have just begun to adopt additive manufacturing, such as 3-D printing, which they use mostly to prototype and produce individual components. With Industry 4.0, these additive-manufacturing methods will be widely used to produce small batches of customized products that offer construction advantages, such as complex, lightweight designs.
2015
Nine Technologies Transforming Industrial Production
Boston Consulting Group (BCG)
Additive Manufacturing
Additive manufacturing (AM) or 3D printing refers to a production method whereby three-dimensional products are created by successively layering material using a computerized or digital process.
2017
Beyond the Noise- The Megatrends of Tomorrow’s World
Deloitte
Additive Manufacturing
The next frontier in manufacturing
2017
Top 50 Emerging Technologies 2017
Frost & Sullivan
Additive manufacturing
Progressively adding material to make a product take shape is an unprecedented approach to manufacturing that warrants new business models and implies significant changes to existing industries. However, this technology must overcome several challenges, both technical and regulatory, if it is to permeate industrial processes on a large scale.
2016
OECD Science, Technology and Innovation Outlook 2016
OECD
Additive manufacturing
As the name suggests, additive manufacturing is the opposite of subtractive manufacturing. The latter is how manufacturing has traditionally been done: starting with a larger piece of material (wood, metal, stone, etc), layers are removed, or subtracted, to leave the desired shape. Additive manufacturing instead starts with loose material, either liquid or powder, and then builds it into a three-dimensional shape using a digital template. 3D products can be highly customized to the end user, unlike mass-produced manufactured goods. An example is the company Invisalign, which uses computer imaging of customers’ teeth to make near-invisible braces tailored to their mouths. Other medical applications are taking 3D printing in a more biological direction: by directly printing human cells, it is now possible to create living tissues that may find potential application in drug safety screening and, ultimately, tissue repair and regeneration. An early example of this bioprinting is Organovo’s printed liver-cell layers, which are aimed at drug testing, and may eventually be used to create transplant organs. Bioprinting has already been used to generate skin and bone, as well as heart and vascular tissue, which offer huge potential in future personalized medicine. An important next stage in additive manufacturing would be the 3D printing of integrated electronic components, such as circuit boards. Nano-scale computer parts, like processors, are difficult to manufacture this way because of the challenges of combining electronic components with others made from multiple different materials. 4D printing now promises to bring in a new generation of products that can alter themselves in response to environmental changes, such as heat and humidity. This could be useful in clothes or footwear, for example, as well as in healthcare products, such as implants designed to change in the human body. Like distributed manufacturing, additive manufacturing is potentially highly disruptive to conventional processes and supply chains. But it remains a nascent technology today, with applications mainly in the automotive, aerospace and medical sectors. Rapid growth is expected over the next decade as more opportunities emerge and innovation in this technology brings it closer to the mass market.
2015
Top 10 emerging technologies of 2015
World Economic Forum (WEF)
Adaptive regulation
How could regulation be responsive to rapid change and an unknowable future? Regulation can be a contentious issue. Critics argue — often justifiably so — that it is onerous, inefficient and an impediment to innovation. But, imagine an entirely different approach. Imagine a future in which consumer safety is protected not by monitoring regulatory compliance and penalizing infractions, but by using big data and algorithms to prevent breaches before they can even occur. Imagine regulations that rewrite themselves to keep up with ever-changing market conditions. Imagine regulation conducted jointly by industry and regulators — a collaborative, rather than contentious, exercise. This is where things are headed. The future of regulation is adaptive. The reason for this shift is disruptive innovation. On one hand, disruptive technologies and business models are straining existing regulatory approaches and making them unsustainable. On the other, these technologies are creating opportunities to conduct regulation in an entirely new way.
2018
What’s after what’s next? The upside of disruption Megatrends shaping 2018 and beyond
EY
Active security protection
The traditional method of protecting computer systems involves the deployment of prevention mechanisms, such as anti-virus software. As attackers become more sophisticated, the effectiveness of protection mechanisms decreases as the cost increases. However, a new generation of security mechanisms is emerging that uses an active approach, such as hooks that can be activated when new types of attacks are exposed and machine-learning mechanisms to identify sophisticated attacks. Attacking the attacker is a technological possibility as well, but is almost always illegal.
2018
IEEE Computer Society Predicts the Future of Tech: Top 10 Technology Trends for 2019
IEEE Computer Society
Active Noise Control & Reduction Technology
Smart noise cancelling technology which predicts the occurrence of noise in real-time and generates sound waves with inverted phase
2017
10 emerging technologies in 2017
South Korea, Korea Institute of S&T Evaluation and Planning (KISTEP)
Active Defense
Despite an increasing focus on securing the digital business, IT departments struggle to keep pace with recent advances in security technology. Enterprises know that endpoint security is not enough, but the move to active defense—risk-based approaches to security management, analytics-driven event detection, and reflex-like incident response—isn’t yet happening on a broad scale. Although these technologies are maturing rapidly and communities are forming to expose risks, the biggest barrier is slow adoption of solutions that already exist. IT’s core challenge: get current with best practices in security while getting smarter about the new active-defense possibilities and getting real about the journey ahead.
2013
Accenture Technology Vision 2013
Accenture