The economic and social opportunities of casting technology for rural women

Abstract

The study examines the economic and social opportunities of additive and casting technology. The Community Casting Project (CCP) is a University of Johannesburg Metal Casting Technology Station (UJ-MCTS) project aimed at converting community-based hand made jewellery and crafts into commercially viable, job creating entities, through a comprehensive number of interventions central to which is additive manufacturing and casting technology. This pilot project which is composed of two phases is the overture to the rollout of the larger project. The six-month pilot project aims to develop and test the business case for the casting technology at three community sites as well as the rollout requirements of the larger project in order to inform the sponsors for the complete project rollout. The paper analyses the rationale and the benefits of additive manufacturing and casting technology. The case study analyses the role of UJ-MCTS in transferring know-how and skills in additive manufacturing and casting technology in an attempt to bring about socio-economic transformation to rural and peri-urban areas of South Africa. The authors propose some opportunities to empower rural women to reap the benefits of additive manufacturing and casting technology to optimise their production processes