A Global NDE 4.0 Roadmap - From the journey to its creation towards a pathway for its sustainability and evolution an updated perspective

Abstract

Regardless of its local name, fahrplans, hoja de ruta or feuille de route, Roadmaps through time have been instru-mental for guiding and thrusting sociocultural, economic, technological and even political changes around the world. When recently a diverse community of NDE 4.0 stakeholders, dispersed over continents and industries, began to interact and bring together a series of common challenges and collaboration initiatives, two questions materialized from those early interactions: “Does the integration of a global NDE 4.0 roadmap is feasible?” and “Does creating such global roadmap truly matters?”. This presentation, and its associated article, aims to provide an answer to both questions by succinctly portraying: 1) The journey to a create a Global NDE 4.0 Roadmap, understanding it as a milestone initiative, through a process that comprised from the mapping of the NDE 4.0 national ecosystems to the definition of a strategic path to reinforcing a Global NDE 4.0 Ecosystem. 2) The pathway for its sustainability and evolution through the integration of specific reinforcing mechanisms and processes since its early design. By merging strategy and innovation, our purpose is also to contribute with the global NDE community by provid-ing valuable practical insights related with: 1) Using and adapting the global NDE 4.0 roadmap to specific needs in order to create specialized roadmaps by industry or geographic region, that are both feasible and relevant. 2) Presenting a strategic sustainability perspective towards the future that may serve as guidance and inspira-tion to keep those specialized roadmaps relevant and useful 3) Integrating the human perspective into NDE 4.0 through professional and personal development paths and certifications, and finally 4) Outlining an agenda of future research aligned with the purpose of NDE 4.0 of contributing to creating a safer and more sustainable word.