Innovation paradigms for the steel industry of the 21st Century. Future directions for steel industry and CC

Abstract

The History of Industry mirrors the History of Society, by which it is also reflected. Its purpose is to describe the emergence of technologies, which exhibit a personality of their own and not only bring out new possibilities, but also a stiffness to which all stakeholders, should to some extent yield, especially the decision makers in business circles. Technologies that succeed commercially are those which are able to provide sustainable answers to the demands put forward successively by each one of them. These robust technologies, which are not identical to the disruptive technologies of K. Brimacombe, meet criteria, which in effect are true innovation paradigms. A list of these is proposed here, stemming from a retrospective analysis of process development in the Steel Industry. It is probably adventurous to project these into a technological forecasting exercise, due to the non-deterministic nature of history. But this is an interesting way to focus on the challenges that should be met in the future and that no stakeholder would refuse to face.