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50 SMT007 MAGAZINE I DECEMBER 2023 A gold rush represents an opportunistic, get- rich-quick scheme. With just one or very few potential winners in each case, most partici- pants are le disappointed with their share, especially when compared to how much effort they put in. ese scenarios are usually not thought through very well, even by the win- ners. When it comes to sustainability in manu- facturing, I've seen a gold rush of sorts to find solutions, but the pieces are disjointed and not uniform. Sustainability needs to be a forever thing—not a race to find gold, but rather a race to work together. e simple discovery of a gold nugget in Cal- ifornia on Jan. 24, 1848, started a movement of pioneers, each set on getting rich the quick- est. Unfortunately, in the seven years that fol- lowed, as many as a hundred thousand people may have lost their lives in their quest for the gold. Masked by hopes of success, they ignored the risks. How many of us today find that risk to be attractive in our modern business plans? In fact, modern gold rushes happen more frequently than we might imagine. Good examples would be the rush to dominate the videotape format, Industry 4.0, cloud comput- The Sustainability Gold Rush Smart Factory Insights Feature Column by Michael Ford, AEGIS SOFTWARE