Birth of a new engineering discipline

Early 20th century saw the growth of petroleum refining industries that, to start with, involved several physical separation processes. This was followed by several downstream industries incorporating chemical reactions like cracking, hydrogenation, chlorination, nitration, etc. With the rapid diversification of chemical and process industries it became obvious to both industry and the academic world that it was no longer possible to serve the sector purposefully with the help of industrial chemists specialized only in single industries.

On both sides of the Atlantic designs for the first curricula of the new discipline of Chemical Engineering emerged. Arthur D. Little in 1915 proposed to MIT the concept of "unit operations", the idea that an operation such as distillation, gas absorption, filtration etc. could be applied to a number of different materials of different characteristics in different chemical and process industries. Consequently, it was no longer essential to specialize in operation of individual manufacturing processes as the industrial chemists were used to. Chemical Engineers began to be treated to a unique curricula which provided tools to adapt themselves quickly to the ever changing world of chemical and process industry.

Beginnings in Bangladesh

The founding fathers of engineering education in the then East Pakistan took a forward looking decision in establishing the "Department of Chemical Engineering" in 1948 in the erstwhile Ahsanullah Engineering College. This was done in the fond hope that graduates form the department would play a pivotal role in industrializing the newly independent country. This was indeed a hold step considering the fact that the profession was yet to have wide acceptance outside the Anglo-American sphere of influence.

Even in Europe independent departments of Chemical Engineering were not yet popular. In this respect the academic initiative and intellectual courage demonstrated by Prof. M.A. Naser, Late Prof. A.Q. Chowdhury, Prof. Syed M. Mazharul Huque and others are indeed praiseworthy. However, while the academics were ready to produce graduates in this new and promising profession, industry was yet to appreciate the role of a Chemical Engineer. The first batch of Chemical Engineers graduated in 1952 and during the initial years only a few graduates were produced.

The mid fifties of the 20th century was a time when natural gas-based industries (e.g. Urea) and paper industries were either being planned or implemented in the country. The ChE faculty at AEC took pains to impress upon the then industrial leaders the need to utilize the members of the new profession. However, the senior technical leaders of industry (largely in public sector), with training and experience in the older mode of running chemical and process plants with chemists and mechanical engineers, were hesitant or reluctant to take the "risk" of employing engineers about whose training and purpose they were only vaguely familiar. This author, after graduating from the department in 1960 applied for the position of an Assistant Chemical Engineer in a sugar mill. He was asked to appear at an interview for the post of an Assistant Chemist. When he tried to explain the role of a Chemical Engineer to the interview board he was finally offered the position of an Assistant Mechanical Engineer! This personal anecdote typically demonstrates the "confusion" that reigned during the early days of this profession in this country.

Chemical and process industries in Bangladesh

In the industrialization of Bangladesh, the first choices with respect to technology were comparatively easy. Industries that could help the growth of agriculture, agro-based industries, e.g. jute and traditional production units for import substitution such as textile and sugar, got preference for obvious reasons. Their technologies were not complicated. For instance, textile, jute, and sugar technologies are relatively simple and repetitive and one only needs more machines, more capital formation. These are also largely final-consumer-goods industries. But succeeding choices have been difficult and required considerable background studies and search, and properly qualified technological manpower.

At the time of partition, there were only five sugar mills and one cement plant. In the early fifties, the then Pakistan Industrial Development Corporation set up the paper mill at Chandraghona based on bamboo and it went into commercial production in 1953. With this paper mill came a number of chemical plants on the same site including sulfuric acid, lime, alum, sodium hydroxide, chlorine etc. Some of the milestones of the development of major chemical process industries in Bangladesh are installation of an integrated pulp and paper mill in Chandraghona (KPM) in 1953, first Urea- factory in Fenchuganj in 1961 and the first petroleum refinery in 1967.

The initial thrust for development of chemical and process industries was provided by large corporations in the public sector. The private sector was involved only in small/medium industries like Soap, Detergents, Cosmetics, Pharmaceuticals etc. However, since the decade of the eighties there has been a gradual shift in emphasis and the sate owned enterprises are being disinvested and the private sector is being encouraged to participate in almost all sectors/sub sectors of industry. Indeed, recent trends show that within the chemical/process sub sector, the private sector has shown considerable interest in setting up several industries viz., Cement, Ceramics, Pulp and Paper, Pharmaceuticals, Agro and Food Processing, etc. However, KAFCO remains the sole instance of private sector involvement in a large chemical process industry.

The contribution of the manufacturing sector to GDP has crossed the double figures recently. In terms of their share in manufacturing GDP, the Chemical and Pharmaceutical sub sector contributes nearly 20%. This does not include the contribution of natural gas based industries like fertilizer or imported crude based refinery. In view of the government control of output prices the value added figures for petroleum and fertilizer industries are very low according to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics. It is felt that their true contribution to manufacturing GDP is not fully represented in such economic measures. One needs to measure the "technology content added" along with "value added" in order to truly measure the contribution of complex units like modern chemical process industries. Given these distortions, the contribution of chemical process industries is perhaps not truly reflected in statistics.

Early constraints in the development of the profession

After Bangladesh became independent, she already had two urea fertilizer factories and was planning for the third. Which meant technical personnel with more than ten years plant experience were available in the country. However, at that point of time donors while assessing the in house technological capability remained unimpressed and suggested that for the planned Ashuganj urea plant a large number of expatriates should be put in place at each and every stage of planning, implementation and operation.

The World Bank in its appraisal reports commented, "There are major risks involved in the projects. To build a complex fertilizer plant in a country of Bangladesh's state is in itself a formidable undertaking"…. "No country, but least of Bangladesh's general state of poverty and limited resources, can afford inefficient project implementation and the introduction of expatriate expertise in project management as well as production functions in addition to the Engineering Firm and the Technical Adviser and their clearly delineated responsibilities as well as their smooth cooperation with the Bangladesh staff is a sine qua non for a successful project."

Due to lack of vision of the industry leaders, the donors took the upper hand. Thus, we cannot avoid the blame of not having taken any initiative in institutionalizing local technological capability in respect of technology assessment and design engineering. No initiative had been taken during 60's to develop engineering design and development capacity in this particular field. Mere experience in the successful operation of complex chemical plants do not constitute technology transfer in the real sense of the term. Granting that it takes longer gestation period to develop the hardware part of such technologies in a developing country, it should have been possible by then to have 'in house' capability in the various software aspects, viz., identification of various components of the technological packages to be imported, checking of the process design information, tender evaluation of vendors' offers and installation of the various components of the plant.

Lack of initiative from industry leaders and decision makers, invisible wall of resistance from vested quarters and professional rivals often created road blocks in the development of the profession during the early years. However, during the design stage of CUFL an offer was made form UNDP/UNIDO for assistance in setting up of a full fledged Engineering Design Division in BCIC. However, the project got lost in the bureaucratic maze in the Ministry. Here was an opportunity for Chemical Engineers to professionally contribute in an area for which they are specially trained. Sadly, yet another opportunity was lost. KAFCO, which is the only large chemical process plant in the private sector, has been able to reach production targets 15-20% above the nameplate capacity in recent months due to introduction of process changes that were initiated, planned and implemented by local engineers. Being in the private sector, the Chemical Engineers in the plant (along with other relevant professionals) are now able to initiate investment decisions that are not subject to scrutiny by layers of bureaucracy as in case of such units in the public sector.

In the private sector Chemical Engineers have demonstrated that they can be innovative in developing Ceramic and medium scale Basic Chemical industries. Obviously the flexibility and entrepreneurial ambience in those sectors helped them to put into practice their ideas and innate capabilities.

Capacity building

Accumulating technological capacity through technology transfer efforts is one of the avowed objectives of any development process. However, during the early years of industrialization in the country it was often not appreciated that mere transfer of hardware and services for installation and start up of an enterprise does not constitute any transfer of technology at all. In Bangladesh, especially during the early years of industrialization efforts, installation of a manufacturing unit has often been equated with technology transfer. This is obviously wrong. Transfer of mere hardware does not constitute technology transfer. The ideal would be "DYNAMIC" transfer where one obtains the knowledge, skills and experience to manipulate and change the production system and gains the capacity to innovate. Such a transfer constitute the real addition to a nation's technological capacity.

In spite of the constraints and unnecessary road blocks in the way of their natural professional development, Chemical Engineers have made their presence felt in several areas of technology absorption and adaptation processes in the country. In the following table the author has attempted to present his personal estimate of the degree of professional capability gained by Chemical Engineers till to date.

Concluding remarks and looking ahead

- It is now well understood in most developing countries that while industrial units can be set up through foreign aid in its various forms, technology is a commodity which has a price tag attached to it. There is no "fixed price" for technology. The price depends on the bargaining capacity of the recipient country. The bargaining capacity is derived from the capability for judicious selection, knowledge of world technology shelf, in-house engineering capability and adequate academic background of the recipient. The profession of Chemical Engineering is poised to play a key role in augmenting this bargaining capacity.

- The corporations in the public sector do have Chemical Engineers with long experience in relevant enterprises. Lately, these experts have been involved in evaluation of technology proposals. However, institutional arrangements to assess, adapt and absorb the largely imported technology are still in a rudimentary stage. Thus, the sector in general and chemical industry in particular have not yet been infused with an innate dynamism which can propel it to reach new heights of chemical engineering innovation and creativity.

- Experience of more successful Asian countries like India, South Korea and notably Japan prove that the weakness of the existing material base does not constitute insurmountable barriers to development of chemical industries provided the human resource base and the socio-economic and cultural environment are deliberately transformed to fruitfully utilize imported technology.

- Successful absorption of imported technology in the country require institutional arrangements where Chemical Engineers can meaningfully utilize their training and skills. The development activities would include efforts to replicate existing vintages of technology utilizing knowledge accumulated from long years of operating existing plants, design engineering initiatives for adapting some of the processes to suit local raw materials and conditions and pilot plant studies on some promising locally developed processes.