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UWI TODAY
– SUNDAY 13TH MARCH, 2016
Pathways toDiversification
The Economic Recession
Engineering
CaribbeanManufacturing
– has its time come?
B Y J O E L H E N R Y
“Manufacturing is the backbone
of developed
nations,” Professor Boppana Chowdary, Head of
the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing
Engineering at UWI St. Augustine, tells me for the
second time.
The first was more than a year ago, in a discussion
on 3D printing, the manufacturing sector and the
Caribbean’s need for diversification.
A year later, and the conversation is almost the
same. In truth, with some variations, the conversation
has been the same for decades. Some would say since
Independence, as the colonies whose role was to supply
crops to the colonial power found themselves with
vulnerable, agrarian economies.
Since those days there has been an understanding
of the necessity for economic diversification and the
growth of manufacturing. And there has been progress
– just not enough. So the conversation continues. But
perhaps the time has finally come for the dynamism
required to make diversification a reality.
With years of low growth and high
unemployment behind it and more of
the same on the horizon (recent
estimates from the ECLAC forecast
Caribbean growth in 2016 at 0.3%),
the region has a critical need for
new solutions. And now even
Trinidad and Tobago, bolstered
by its energy sector-driven export
trade is being hit by low oil prices.
On top of this, there are fears of
a global turndown, which will
affect Caribbean services and
commodities. The islands now
have more motivation for strong
diversification measures than
ever before – desperate necessity.
Professor Chowdary has
been ready.
“I was at a gathering hosted by InvesTT (one of
Trinidad and Tobago’s investment promotion state
agencies),” he recounts, “and I told the stakeholders from
the manufacturing sector ‘if you are willing to come forward
one step, I will come forward seven’.”
As Head of the Department, he is facing a dilemma.
The UWI decided to combine the existing Mechanical
Engineering Department with Manufacturing with the
intention of training a cadre of manufacturing engineers
to support an emerging, vibrant manufacturing sector.
That sector has not emerged. There is a relatively successful
manufacturing sector in Trinidad and Tobago but its
contribution to GDP is small (estimated at TT$7,633.2
million or 8.1% of GDP in 2015). But the sector is certainly
not enough to attract engineering students away from the
far more prosperous energy sector. Nor is it at the level of
sophistication in manufacturing technology to even need
trained manufacturing engineers.
“Caribbean manufacturing has several challenges,”
Professor Chowdary says, “outdated machinery, limited
raw materials, expensive or unproductive labour and
lack of funding for research. Because of this, Caribbean
manufacturing companies are struggling to compete
internationally.”
Several pieces have to be put in place for an
internationally competitive manufacturing industry to
develop in the region, training engineers and researching
and developing innovative manufacturing technologies
and processes comprise one piece. Without the others it
will not work.
“All the developed and developing nations with strong
manufacturing have collaboration between the universities,
business and government. That is what we are missing in
the Caribbean,” he says.
Universities such as MIT, Stanford, the Indian Institute
of Technology (IIT) and many more, routinely collaborate
with governments and the private sector to achieve
mutually beneficial national goals. In fact, the development
of Trinidad and Tobago’s oil and gas-based sector is an
Professor Boppana Chowdary
Head of the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at UWI St. Augustine
“All the developed and developing nations with
strongmanufacturing have collaboration between
the universities, business and government. That is
what we aremissing in the Caribbean.”
