With this issue 1–2 / 2021 of the Foundry Review, we are starting another challenging year of our activity.

Unfortunately our hopes that this year will allow us to start operating without restrictions haven’t come true. The limitations imposed by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, have not been limited despite the efforts of our authorities, health service and social discipline.

However, there is new hope that lies in vaccinations, which, if carried out according to the order set by the Polish government, will allow for a gradual and prudent defrosting of the economy and a slow return to normalcy.

This normality in relation to our activities is basically the possibility of returning to the organization of conferences, fairs, training courses, etc., which were once again postponed to the second half of the year, mainly to the last months of autumn.

We expect that the end of this year will be a period in which the global economy will be able to visibly activate and resume action after the difficult time of the pandemic. Therefore, we hope that it will be possible to meet you during our conferences and the National Foundrymen’s Day, the more so as it will be accompanied by a great Jubilee – the 85th anniversary of our activity.

However, in order to present an independent assessment of the situation of the Polish foundry industry in the time of the pandemic, in the issue 1–2 / 2021 of Przegląd Odlewnictwa(Foundry Review) we publish several interviews with active representatives of the industry. In their statements, they present their experiences and thoughts as well as their activity in the past year. We are convinced that these publications will be very valuable and will allow our Readers to familiarize themselves with a professional and reliable assessment of the situation, the assessment of Polish foundries and companies cooperating with them.

In addition, we continue to publish articles that are very important from the point of view of Industry 4.0, devoted to digitization and the implementation of this idea in real life, including:

• Digital transformation barriers, by Piotr Ziółkowski,
• Data mining and machine learning in the aspects of acquiring knowledge about the production and processing of metals for industry 4.0, by Krzysztof Regulski,

In the current issue you will also find news from the Polish and foreign foundry industry and related businesses, as well as the open training program and ongoing activities of the Association. We especially encourage you to support the activities of the Association by helping us gather statistical data from the industry, by taking our statistical survey, and to appear in the next edition of the Catalog of Polish Foundries and Suppliers for Foundry.

We kindly encourage you to read Przegląd Odlewnictwa which, thanks to you and for you, is trying to be an increasingly attractive source of information. At the same time, we wish everyone health, patience and perseverance in overcoming protracted restrictions and hope for a quick return to normalcy.

Tadeusz Franaszek – editor-in-chief