Rangaswamy (Sarathy) Parthasarathy
Chairman
Thirumalai Chemicals Limited (TCL)
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
There is a large gap between what chemical engineering students need in industry and what they learn at an undergraduate or even thegraduate level. Not just for working in manufacturing jobs where it isseriously inadequate, but also for careers & roles in process development, design & engineering and industrial research. Even research in industry seems to have very little to do with the pure and very advanced theoretical learning that we focus at a graduate level. Unless of course the student is going to be faculty at university level or focus on basic research.
When industry absorbs graduates, we very often have to re-train them extensively. Of course there are certain roles such as catalyst development, industrial pharma research and so on where our structure of education as a chemical engineer/biotechnology does seem to prepare us, but not in a large spectrum of other industries.
How then can universities and industry work together to bridge this gap?
I am going to talk about a case study of an industrial research and process development project we did in my company, ending in actually engineering and building a working medium scale plant and operating it.
This involved fermentation, cell immobilization along with Matryx development, catalytic synthesis, bio transformation and purification with a very modern membrane process. We then designed, engineered the plant and put it into operation. It worked!
How much did my education and that of my colleagues prepare us for all this ?
It did give me a broad understanding of chemical engineering, but I wished all through those 5 years on this, that I had learned more pilot plant work, process design and plant engineering and optimization.
I will detail out this journey.
Parthasarathy (Sarathy) grew up in Bombay, India, and was educated as a Chemical Engineer at the IIT-Bombay, and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he had the honor of working under the guidance of distinguished Professors R.Byron Bird, Ken Watson and Grieger.
He is the Executive Chairman of TCL ( Thirumalai Chemicals group), an Intermediates and Fine Chemicals Manufacturer in India, South East Asia and now US, catering to markets around the world.
He was VP & President of the Indian Chemical Council from 2007 to 2011. He is active in various industry and public organizations and in policy and advocacy aimed at clean manufacturing in the Chemical & Process Industry.
He has worked in and led manufacturing, technology development, marketing and business startups in India and the US. He continues to work in technology & process development, new projects & businesses, in reduction of water, waste, and in various energy reduction programs.
TCL is presently building Petrochem and Fine Chem manufacturing facilities in W VA (near Pittsburgh). Sarathy is closely involved in this project, and has led technology development for these processes.
He has been actively involved in rural Education and in Healthcare in India, as a Founder of the Vedavalli Schools, and as a Trustee of the Thirumalai Mission Hospital which works in Rural Development, Healthcare and Women’s Empowerment in over 350 villages in South India since 1983. He has lived in South India since 1976.