Paul T Kidd's second work of fiction has been published (Nov 2012): Father Christmas Adventures. His first full length novel will be published in 2013. More information to follow as plans develop ... And in 2013, we will also be releasing as a separate publication, one of the tales from Father Christmas Adventures. Encounter with a Wise Man is a Christmas story for the modern age, serving as a warning about the consequences of the ideological tendencies of contemporary civilisation. And this does not just refer to the obvious dogmas of religion, but also to the other dominant ideologies of the modern world which lie at the root of humanity’s current problems.

Cheshire Henbury’s web site is undergoing a major redesign with a new design and layout replacing the old. An extensive amount of new content will also be added. This is being done using an evolutionary, adaptive design approach which also integrates thinking and doing. This is contrast to the linear stage-wise thinking that is often deployed by engineers and technologists. The reason for using this adaptive method is two fold: (i) the adaptive approach is an exemplar of a post-industrial era approach to design and development (unlike the linear stage-wise method which is firmly rooted in the past industrial age); and (ii), the exercise is a development process which is itself part of an experiment, part of a learning process, and part of a knowledge development and transfer activity, which is driven by both innovation and a requirement to be responsiveness to changing circumstances. And it is really exciting not knowing fully in advance where one is going and where one might end up.

So far we have decided upon a new design layout, and eventually (after much reflection) arrived at a structure for the content that provides the capability to adapt to new opportunities and requirements. The first priority now (end of November 2012) is to translate existing content into the new layout design. Then, once this is done, we will begin to expand new content in accordance with strategic priorities for 2013.

Transitioning to a sustainable civilisation involves changing the collective values and beliefs upon which the present industrialised world is based, and opening peoples’ eyes to the damaging consequences of the ideologies that underlie science, technology, engineering, free market enterprise, religion, etc. If humanity is to ever achieve sustainability, it will need to reinvent these most important aspects of our civilisation.

Paul T Kidd uses fiction to explore these matters, and to comment upon the nature of contemporary society, the forces at work that keep people locked in a way of living that has long since ceased to be relevant, ... read full text on Paul T Kidd's pages.

Does the book publishing industry have a future? Will the physical book still exist in 10 years time? Will authors still need literary agents, and if so what will be their role? All interesting questions for authors, and highly relevant ones too, given the changes that are taking place in the book publishing business.

It is evident that traditional publishers have been slow to wake up to the challenges and opportunities posed by eBooks. Not surprising though, as this is a feature of most businesses that become trapped in the past. Publishing today is ripe for a massive transformation ... read full text on Paul T Kidd's pages.

The strategic drivers affecting the future development of agriculture can be summarised as follows: increasing world population; growing demand for calories and protein in developing countries; limited or decreasing resources (arable land, water, energy); sustainability, particularly reducing energy intensity and greenhouse gas emissions and reversing loss of habits and the decline in biodiversity (including the decline in soil biodiversity); increasing food quality awareness in developed nations; protection and preservation of water resources; and dealing with problems of soil compaction, erosion, loss of soil organic matter, salinisation, and desertification.

Many of the problems listed above are the result of the application of reductionist scientific methods and industrial engineering thinking. It is quite surprising therefore, possibly an act of insanity, that, just as people are waking up to the damaging consequences of industrial scale intensive farming, and all the scientific and technological paraphernalia that has to go with it to keep those very large agricultural technology businesses happy, people are talking about applying more of the science, engineering and technology that is so evidently part of the problem.

It has been said by people with vested interests in maintaining the status quo, and in a most condescending way, that it would take two planets to feed the world using organic farming methods. But what they will not tell you is how many planets worth of oil and natural gas it will take to feed the world if humanity listens to this nonsense, and does not develop a completely different way of growing its food.

Paul T Kidd has been examining and investigating these matters for the past five years, observing and analysing the conventional thinking and research that is being disingenuously presented as innovation, but which is if fact holding back the development of a new and sustainable system of agriculture. More will be published once Paul has completed the book he is writing on this subject.

What is wrong with European Manufacturing? Struggling to cope with increasing global competition, Europe’s manufacturing base is being slowly eroded away. But the problem is not a new one. As far back as the 1970s, UK manufacturing was probably the first to experience the effects of increasing global competition, and now, manufacturing industries in all the nations of the European Union are feeling the pressure. So what is the answer? This must surely be to invest in industry-driven research of course. This is the latest cry, the latest silver bullet. Add in some buzz words (and quite dated ones from the late 90s about value adding chains, and competition among these chains (as opposed to competition among single enterprise entities) and one has the solution to the problem of lack of competitiveness.

... read full text on our Competitive Manufacturing Enterprise pages.

Scientists, engineers and technologists bear a heavy burden of responsibility for the unsustainable nature of contemporary civilisation given their mechanistic and reductionist values, and the resulting lack of respect for humanity and nature, although few probably realise this, so caught-up are they in their respective ideologies. An eminent applied mathematician and control engineer, the late Professor Howard Rosenbrock, FRS, was prepared to tackle this matter and began in the later stages of his career to develop the intellectual foundations for new approaches to science, engineering and technology, through the development of a method for developing skill enhancing or human-centred technologies, and an exploration of a scientific method based on … read the full text on our sustainability pages.

Following the first ever, triple reactor core meltdown, and the contamination of tens of square kilometres of surrounding countryside with Strontium 90, here are some worrying statements made by some senior engineers and scientists in the UK:

“People have an irrational fear of radiation.”

“No one died (from exposure to radiation).”

“... in terms of a nuclear accident it showed what people can do in very trying circumstances ...”

“All the press focused on ... was a reactor puffing steam.”

... read full text on our sustainability pages.

C P Snow was by vocation a writer, producing over his lifetime a number of works of fiction. But he was also by education, training and employment a physicist who undertook a considerable amount of work for the British Government. Being grounded in two very different worlds, and being given the unenviable task during the Second World War of interviewing science and engineering undergraduates to determine how best they could be deployed in support of the war effort, Snow became aware of the existence of what he called Two Cultures, and eventually gave a lecture on this subject and wrote a book addressing this matter. Many decades on, the question remains whether the problems associated with Two Cultures still exist, how this concept has evolved, and also what new issues arise in the modern world as a consequence. Paul T Kidd, who is also by vocation a writer, is involved, via his education, training and work, in the world of science, engineering and technology, as well as business. Through this he has become very familiar with Two Cultures, and has begun to explore in his works of fiction some of the implications for humanity, especially given the social, economic and environmental challenges of the early 21st century. We will have more to say about these Two Cultures as the content of this web site is developed.

Engineering is very important to society, given that most of that which we rely upon in the modern world results from engineering endeavour. But there is another side to engineering, which, on the whole, many engineers do not want to discuss. For, not only are engineers partly responsible for all those things that make life comfortable, but also all the bad things that are destroying our world. And yet many engineers are seemingly blind to this fact, and also unwilling to engage in the intellectual development that would move them forward. They are literally, trapped in the past. ... read the full text on our sustainability pages.

"Optimism is a mania for insisting that all is well when all is by no means well"
Voltaire (Candide)

"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in they must lead ..., but if the courses be departed from the ends will change"
Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol)

"Two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference"
Robert Frost (The Road Not Taken)

Cheshire Henbury was established by Paul T Kidd in 1988. The main focus of activity has been in the area of research strategy and policy, especially in relation to longer term issues in manufacturing. Paul is an internationally recognised expert and pioneer in the areas of Agile Manufacturing, Next Generation Manufacturing, and manufacturing visions, futures and foresight. Since 1996 Paul has focused his attention on sustainable manufacturing. In 2007 he also started working in the area of sustainable agriculture and food distribution. Manufacturing and Agriculture are both strategically important for a successful transition to a sustainable civilisation. Both however, are locked in the past, caught-up in collective beliefs and taken for granted assumptions that result in research that is nothing more that a projection of an irrelevant past into an irrelevant future. Research support agencies need to open their eyes to this problem … And it is the exploration of these strategic matters that you will find here, in the content of this web site and in Paul T Kidd's books.

We live in a world that is increasingly dominated by multinational corporations and global trade. And the actions and activities of these multinationals can and do lead to, environmental catastrophes from time to time. Sometimes these can have impacts beyond national jurisdictions, e.g. the Deep Water Horizon disaster. In addition, some global companies behave in ways that have devastating global consequences, with the most high profile example of this being the casino antics of the financial and banking sector, but their are others of note, such as the telephone hacking scandal at the now defunct News of the Word newspaper (owned by .., yes another global corporation). All over the world, large companies are stripping the world of its natural resources, to fuel a society that is taking more of these resources than it is entitled to. Moreover, the western world is experiencing ... read full text on our sustainability pages.