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Patrick Helly CEng Prof MICME MIMechE, ICME National President 2010-2011

Patrick Helly CEng Prof MICME MIMechE has been elected as the National President for ICME for 2010/11. Patrick owns and manages New Pro Foundry, an independent, medium volume non-ferrous foundry. The company manufactures components for a range of sectors including automotive, film and arts and general engineering. The company also specialises in supplying the classic and specialist vehicle markets. Components have been produced for classics like Aston Martin, Bugatti and Norton as well as more modern brands like the McLaren F1.

A practical and enthusiastic foundryman, Patrick has a long involvement with ICME at regional and national level through the London Branch where he has been secretary, treasurer and president. He is also a member of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers and a Chartered Engineer.

Friendly and helpful members

It is of course a great honour to be elected President of the Institute of Cast Metals Engineers. I have been a member since 1982 and have found the members to be friendly, helpful and great fun to be with.

One thing that I have noticed is that there has always been a certain shyness about what we do and our industry, perhaps because of the age and history of the industry and the common perception of manufacturing in general.

I have worked in other areas of industry - high volume machinery, automotive fuel development, the nuclear industry and electricity generation and I can tell you that in my opinion there is no industry that offers the intellectual challenges, diversity and downright fun that the casting industry does.

The importance of the castings industry

We also have history; casting is the oldest mass manufacturing activity. Indeed modern civilisation is impossible without castings as is shown from some of the following examples.

The provision of fresh clean drinking water has saved more lives than any medical treatment and depends on casting pumps and valves, items which are near impossible to make any other way, certainly not economically.

In transport, cars rely on engine blocks, cylinder heads, gearboxes and brake discs as well as components for rail and aerospace, and in power generation we require turbine housings and gearboxes. Not forgetting mobile phones and plastics, all are dependent upon castings.

In short our modern civilisation is a direct result of the work of our predecessors in the industry. And our work continues.

Pride in our industry

So, when you are asked “What do you do?” don’t mumble about manufacturing or avoid an answer. Stand up and say “I am a Foundryman, I make castings that make civilisation possible.” This leads me to what can be called my ‘Theme’ for my year in office.

I want to instruct and educate our government and the wider public about our industry and I believe our remit to educate within the industry can be expanded to include these groups.

To this end we will be engaging with Parliament through the Industry and Parliament Trust to broaden their appreciation of the industry. We have this June had our second meeting with the Trust, and the opportunities to engage with politicians and advisors is there for us to take. I urge all members to engage with their industrial neighbours, our local councils, schools and universities, to promote the importance of our great industry.

This can be an exciting time, an opportunity to raise our profile and hopefully attract new members.

I would like to thank Dr Bill Griffiths, from whom I take over the reins and who alongside other officers of council, has worked hard over the last several months to steer the institute through the difficult period of the global recession and all the challenges that this brings.

I look forward during my year of office to working alongside Vice Presidents Steve Bell and Ian Young and to meeting with many of you at the national and branch events that will be taking place during the coming months.

Dr Bill Griffiths, ICME National President 2009-2010

Dr Bill Griffiths is currently Senior Lecturer at The University of Birmingham in the UK. Bill began his working life in a grey cast iron foundry, obtaining an HND in Cast Metals Technology and much practical experience. This was followed by a return to studies, eventually resulting in a PhD in Industrial Metallurgy (his thesis was entitled "The quenching characteristics of sodium polyacrylate solutions"). He was then employed at Foseco International Limited on the development of grain refiners and modifiers for Al alloys before becoming a Senior Research Associate at Nottingham University studying electromagnetic stirring of Al alloys. He then became the Federal-Mogul Senior Research Fellow at UMIST where he spent nearly five years studying interfacial heat transfer during casting solidification. He has presented numerous papers at international conferences and is frequently published in our own Foundry Trade Journal. Bill is also a longstanding member of the ICME Technical Board and was Vice-Chair of the Technical Committee for the recent World Foundry Congress held in the UK in 2006.

Challenging Times Ahead

I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to the Council for presenting me with the opportunity to become President of the Institute of Cast Metals Engineers, and to add to this my thanks to Pamela Murrell and the office staff for their hard work and support over the past few years.

The Institute is going through a challenging time at the moment and this prompts thought and discussion about the future strategy of the Institute. There has been a decline in the value of the investment fund, due to a global recession, and a continuing annual deficit which draws on the investment fund capital. Furthermore, there has been an overall decline in the numbers of members over recent years, and an increase in the average age of members, both of which reflect what has been happening in the foundry industry in the last few decades. We must consider the future strategy of the Institute, so that the services we deliver to our members are not diminished and, if possible, further improved.

From the many Council and other meetings that I have attended it is apparent that some form of Institute for our industry should survive into the future, and the current debate revolves around the form in which it will take. I detect two schools of thought; one says that the Institute can thrive independently; the other says that some sort of merger is desirable. I hope that I can see the arguments on both sides dispassionately and objectively; I am not committed to either school of thought by reason of past habits, or romanticised memories.

To deal with the independent Institute model first, our expenditure currently exceeds our income, and this would suggest that the Institute has a finite life. We must either raise income, cut expenditure, or do both so that the two sums match.

Can we raise income by increasing membership? Like many institutes, we have a membership profile that is increasingly aging, while younger members are not entering the Institute at anything like the rate we would all like to see. Many of the older members are the backbone of the regional Branches, and continue to support the activities of the institute very strongly. Our current membership demographic suggests a future where the membership numbers inevitably decrease. We are actively pursuing new recruits now, and this has met with some success, with over 100 new members joining during recent months. However we still want more young and enthusiastic members willing to do things for one another – only in this way can the Institute move forward.

To recruit these new members has been challenging and I would like to here thank Dr Tom Paterson for his considerable efforts in this endeavour. At the moment we seem to have reached a situation where our membership numbers are stable at just over 1000. I suggest this is where we will stay. Further active recruitment will stabilise membership numbers, but may not lead to their expansion. Significant growth of the Institute as it is currently constituted would seem unlikely. If we want to expand membership we need to broaden our appeal by increasing the range of our interests and activities, but it is not clear how that can be done at the moment.

Further sources of revenue-raising are continuously being examined by the Institute’s office staff and the Strategy Group established by the Council. It is difficult to see how we can increase advertising revenue, particularly in the current recession. Looking ahead to the end of the recession, the income stream from advertising will probably bounce back to its original level before the recession. The Institute could increase revenue from training, and there does seem to be a demand for this, and certainly the Institute did a great deal more training of its members in the past. However, this activity is virtually moribund, apart from the activities of Pam and myself. There appears to be a shortage of volunteers willing to participate in training courses, and also limited actual demand, perhaps due to a lack of awareness about what is available. Perhaps something could be done here in the future at the Branch level? In this connection I would like to note that deskilling of operations seems to have reduced the need for operator training, but the reduction in the number of metallurgists has led to an increase in demand for more general education about the casting process, its advantages and disadvantages, etc.


How about cost-cutting? This is always possible and it is tempting to declare that the Institute should simply live within its means. But what sort of Institute would this be? Run only with the membership revenue and the income from the fund would it be able to do anything? The Institute has attracted great kudos globally from its performance in hosting the World Foundry Congress in Harrogate, and it is beginning to be mobilised behind the new Foundation Degree in Casting Science, (to be delivered by Bradford College), which promises to be a very strong contributor to the training needs of the industry. To commit to such large but valuable projects could well be beyond the scope of a shrunken ICME. If the Institute lived within its means, it would need to rely much more heavily on a large pool of volunteers and this at a time when society is changing and bringing about a noticeable reduction in the ethos of volunteering, and in an Institute in which it has been noted there are limited numbers of young enthusiastic members.

While cost-cutting is an attractive way out of the present situation, it could lead to an Institute that is so limited in its scope and activities that it becomes unimportant to the foundry profession, resulting in further declining membership and eventual implosion.

Continuing Independence or Combine with another Organisation(s)

Having looked at the difficulties associated with continuing independence, is the answer necessarily then to combine with another organisation, (or multiple organisations)? There are other professional organisations involved in activities which complement the activities of the Institute of Cast Metals Engineers, and there are other organisations which carry out key activities for the foundry industry which would enlarge our sphere of activities greatly.

If we combine with a small organisation, it is probable that they too would have troubles, and the problem is compounded, not solved. That leaves the possibility of joining with a larger organisation as a better option. But what would this mean for the Institute? The Institute has a particular character and it has an identity. I would define the character of the Institute by saying that this is reflected in its members, and is revealed in the way that things get done (or not done). I would define the identity of the Institute as its goals and its aspirations; its raison d’etre.

In combining with another organisation the character of the Institute would necessarily change as different personnel would get involved in the running of the new body. This is perhaps not a bad thing; the Council is in need of new blood, as it does not have sufficient members. Many of the Standing Committees would benefit from a fresh injection of ideas and members.

But what of the identity of the Institute? Many people in the branches and on the Council and in the Committees are involved with the Institute because they identify with its aims and objectives. The Strategy Group has recently defined a list of worthwhile goals for the Institute, (many of which are currently being met in its present form, by the way), against which to benchmark future changes in the organisation. If we were to combine with another organisation, we may lose control over these objectives that we currently deem worthwhile, and the Institute would lose its identity, its purpose for its existence, as this would be, presumably, redefined (or left undefined) in any new hypothetical organisation.

As you can see the issues facing the Institute have not gone unnoticed and ignored. In conclusion I would like to say that a future strategy should be arrived at soon, and the members should learn about it in the next year at most. In my opinion, the probable best solution is a middle course. We shall have to minimise our spending, but we must try to do it without having too much of an impact on our activities. We will have to try to raise revenue, whilst accepting that it may take considerable effort to raise only a little. It is not clear that a merger solves our problems, but it is certainly true that we could achieve more through more formal co-operation with the other bodies in the foundry industry.

Volunteerism

Finally, there is a very clear solution to the problem of the future of the Institute – we just have to do more with less! This is not such a crazy idea as it sounds – the Institute has always been primarily an organisation run by volunteers. The ethos of volunteerism is still strong in some branches and some national activities. If more volunteers could be obtained, we could do, literally, whatever we liked……….. So, very finally, if you are reading this and thinking the Institute does not offer much to you – what would you like it to do, and are you prepared to get together with a group of like-minded people and do it for everybody!