It would be presumptuous to say that I have a vision for the future of Chemical Engineering. A vision has value only if it is a shared one, and only if it is reached after focused and thorough discussions with those involved. What I would like to present, rather, are some personal perspectives on the formulation of a vision of the chemical engineer’s role, discussing its components from a personal viewpoint, drawing on the ideas presented in the previous chapters. I would like to propose a framework which focuses on the chemical engineer as a person and three related aspects of his life: the job, the contribution to the society, and the responsibility to the physical world (Fig. 1). First, however, I shall highlight the important social, technological and economic factors affecting the life of the chemical engineer.
A new environment for the 21st century
Science and technology have occupied a central position in the 20th Century and have ushered in the knowledge-based economy. The profound changes in the socialeconomical environment that science and technology have brought about will be carried further. The characteristics of our present environment are illustrated in Table 1, showing the trends that can be expected to influence the future. Most of the features listed in Table 1 will be familiar to the chemical engineering community. We live in a world changing at an increasingly rapid pace. To illustrate the pace of technological innovation, consider as a benchmark the number of years for a technology to reach 50 million users worldwide. It took radio 35, personal computers 16, color television 13 and the world wide web 4 years respectively to reach this mass audience [1]. The structural changes in the chemical industry in the last two decades have been phenomenal and are still occurring. At one time, a chemical engineer would have been proud to pursue a career opportunity with corporate giants like Hoechst, ICI, McDonald Douglas, Rhone Poulenc, Union Carbide, or American Cyanamid.Where are these companies now? The answer is that they have been down-sized, divested, acquired, merged and re-structured, some many times over, as vividly illustrated by Professor Felcht in Chapter 3. The nature of competition between companies is changing. In the past, a chemical company knew who its competitors in the marketplace were. In the future, competitors will emerge unexpectedly from all directions. Suppliers, customers, partners can all change roles to become competitors. Competition from new technology will be severe in many instances. The only advantage is that in every competition, there will also be an opportunity for cooperation. In the knowledge-based economy, knowledge has more value if shared. This is the essence of this non-zero sum game. Thus we have witnessed technological and social transformations at multiple levels with far-reaching effects in our home, office and factory, and impacts on the routines of our daily life, our jobs, our modes of operation and our ways of thinking.
The job: chemical engineering
A chemical engineer may perform one or more of the following functions: research and development, manufacturing, management and service, and education. Analyzing the disintegration of big conglomerates and the restructuring of the chemical processing industries, especially in Europe, Felcht portrays in Chapter 3 two basic types of chemical companies: the Molecule Suppliers and the Problem Solvers. Molecule Suppliers include manufacturers of commodities and fine chemicals while the Problems Solvers are manufacturers of specialty chemicals, pharmaceuticals, agricultural and other active ingredients. To compete, Molecule Supplier companies will rely on sophisticated process technology, economies of scale, access to cost-effective raw materials, interlinked energy and material saving processes and excellent logistics systems. Problem Solver companies will compete on unique product property and performance, or high end-use value provided to customers. Thus whilst Molecule Suppliers can easily be substituted on cost and availability criteria, Problem Solver companies are not easily, if at all, substitutable, and thrive on the “magic” performance of their products. A chemical engineer pursuing product R&D should strive to analyze the nature of his business and the success factors concerned — and then design for an architecture of high end-use values, or for an interlinking of material and energy efficient processes. Additionally, the reduction, re-use and recycling of a product during its full product-life cycle should always be considered during its product development. Chemical engineers working in product R&D should have an intimate knowledge of nano-science, life science, biotechnology, genetic modification technology, advanced materials technology, computer modeling and computational science.
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