FMC Corporation, headquartered in Chicago, received top corporate honors from NCSA at the center's Sixth Annual Executive Meeting of NCSA's Industrial Partners in April 1994.
FMC was recognized for its use of modeling and simulation employing high-performance computing technology to enhance research applications in the areas of controlling insect pests and weeds, as well as optimizing machinery, vehicles, and chemical processing plants.
"For FMC, earning NCSA's third Industrial Grand Challenge Award began with the creation of prototypes to model new products and processes," says John Stevenson, NCSA's corporate officer and head of the Industrial Partnership Program. "Our partnership helped provide FMC with the appropriate technology and access to high-performance computing."
FMC succeeded in performing dozens of modeling and simulation projects to improve current products and contribute to the development of new products. The technology developed by FMC scientists and engineers is being used at FMC's Corporate Technology Center in Santa Clara, CA, and at a range of FMC businesses--including agricultural and industrial chemicals, energy equipment, food machinery, and airline and defense equipment. HPC capabilities are increasing the efficiency of processes and contributing to cost savings.
The award recognizes the efforts of Mike Skreiner (FMC's Corporate Technology Center in Santa Clara, CA), Ernie Plummer (FMC's Agricultural Chemical Group at the company's Research and Development Center in Princeton, NJ), and their teams of technologists.
"We made the decision almost six years ago to invest in high- performance computing, modeling, and simulation," Skreiner states. "It was at that time that we began working with NCSA. Our task was to pioneer the access, exploration, and transfer technology to provide significant business benefits to FMC's worldwide operations. That led to some real opportunities and applications, such as the research and discovery work of Dr. Plummer and his team in Princeton."
"We focused our work on the development of three-dimensional models of enzymes and receptors--targets for the control of insect pests and weeds," Plummer explains. "We applied high- performance computing to enhance our discovery process. We isolated the building blocks that dictate insect growth--enzymes and receptors--then built three-dimensional models of them. We then were able to test models of new compounds against the target sites to estimate effectiveness.
"Being able to visualize this interaction with the target site allows our scientists to use their imaginations, and increases the probability of finding new compounds," Plummer says. "We can actually visualize how a compound interacts with a target site and what changes we can make in order to increase its activity. The electronic images are dynamic models that move like the real world moves and give us a much more accurate view of what we are seeing."
"One of the other reasons for establishing our relationship with NCSA and UIUC was to improve the efficiency of FMC's operations," Skreiner points out. "That's clearly happened, too. By developing a better understanding of high-performance computing, we were able not only to plan and justify new acquisitions, but also to determine when to dispose of obsolete computing resources. Since 1988 we have reduced our cost of a unit of computing 1,900 times."
The partnership between FMC and NCSA could result in scientific innovations that bring competitive advantages to U.S. businesses on a global scale. For FMC, the partnership is an important step in expanding its leadership position in the global marketplace. FMC joins 11 other major corporations as part of an industry-university-government partnership to help American industry advance in the use of HPCC.
