Designing a Model of Key Factors Affecting the Future of Manufacturing

Existence of pressure on industries for successful competition, gives redundant importance to ability of percepting future. Withal, manufacturing sector is one of the important economic pillars of each country. In line with this, the purpose of this study is presenting a model of key factors affecting the future of manufacturing in Islamic Republic of Iran. This research is an applied research and in terms of data gathering, is descriptive from metrical type.In this research, research fiches, asking experts’ opinions and questionnaires have been used for data gathering, so that by using library studies, 31 key factors affecting the future of manufacturing were identified and then based on opinions of 7 professors and experts, expertized conjointly in both foresight and manufacturing fields, 9 other factors were added and categorized in 8 dimensions. Then questionnaires, containing all factors, after validity confirming by 7 experts, were distributed among 121 experts of foresight and manufacturing fields in Tehran, chosen based on snowball sampling method till the saturation stage. In reliability examination stage, 4 factors and in the stage of data analysis through confirmatory factor analysis, 4 other factors were eliminated and finally a model of key factors affecting the future of manufacturing was presented.