Analyzing the gap between sustainability and the supply of new talented people within the global foundry sector

The last few years have seen unprecedented change in the global market place. Purchasing criteria have changed in line with customer expectation and a new mantra of sustainability echos within the boardrooms of all progressive organizations. For sustainability to be manifest, three key areas have to be balanced, these are the social, fiscal and environmental aspects of the organization concerned. History has taught us that technology is not the answer. Technology can be bought and sold anywhere in the world and of itself is not the differentiator for any business. Likewise meaningless initiatives typified recently by an Industrial Group suing the EPA on the grounds of who’s fault it is for global warming, is as futile as it is money wasting. There is little doubt that the new world economy offers significant opportunity for progressive foundries to earn significant revenue by embracing a sustainable strategy. But to do this, a different viewpoint and consensus must be achieved by the businesses concerned. The lack of suitably trained and qualified business leaders represents the single greatest challenge moving forward with a sustainable strategy for any organization. Current training and education packages do not adequately address sustainable issues within the technological / business environment. There is a signifiant gap between the theoretical and applied principles and this gap needs to be closed if new “green businesses” are to be profitable. While we continue to teach traditional cast metals technologies, we will continue to receive “traditional foundry men”, who will have little idea how to make money in the new world “green” environment. This paper discusses the perspective of current global education and research policies from an industrial/practitioner point of view. A gap analysis is offered and a framework for future industrial needs is provided. This paper also discusses the sensitive area of why so many achievers within higher education and research remain disappointingly unemployable within industry and as such indirectly increase the gap further.