Project Overview

The Future of Manufacturing has been produced by Future iQ as a foresight research paper. This paper analyses and discusses the key trends that are impacting the global manufacturing sector. Manufacturing products and processes have witnessed a near-constant evolution over the last three hundred years. Beginning with the first organized mass production of textiles in Europe in the early eighteenth century to the currently developing innovations, such as the Internet of Things and robotics, the global economy has become increasingly defined by the trade of goods produced in factories of all sizes. Success in the development of an advanced manufacturing sector has been synonymous with a nation or state ascending to “first-world” status, but is now even more critical to maintain that standing. Future iQ believes that manufacturing is on the verge of a fourth industrial revolution driven by a series of shifts in consumer driven markets, technology, workforce and sustainability. To prosper, manufacturers, and associated economies must continue to grow and adapt at ever increasing speed and intensity. Many of the innovative processes and practices outlined in this report will prove pivotal to future success.