Executive
Summary
The
complete "Technology
Vision 2020: The U.S. Chemical Industry" is available electronically
from ACS I&EC
Division.
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Our Challenges |
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Meeting the Challenge |
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Technical Recommendations |
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Chemical Science |
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Enabling Technologies |
- increasing globalization of markets,
- societal demands for higher environmental performance,
- financial market demands for increased profitability and capital productivity,
- higher customer expectations, and
- changing work force requirements.
How the industry meets these challenges will affect the entire American economy. The U.S. chemical industry is the world's largest producer of chemicals (value shipped, $367.5 billion in 1995), contributing the largest trade surplus of any non- defense-related sector to the U.S. economy ($20.4 billion in 1995), representing 10 percent of all U.S. manufacturing, and employing more than 1 million Americans. The chemical industry, faced with an ever-changing business environment, must work individually and collectively to remain a world leader.
We believe the chemical industry in the United States must confront these new market pressures head-on. With the goal of creating a technology "roadmap" for the chemical industry to follow, we examined the technical disciplines of new chemical science and engineering technology, supply chain technology, information systems, and manufacturing and operations. From our assessment of the industry's needs in these areas, we determined that the chemical industry must accomplish five broad goals over the next 25 years. It must
- improve operations, with a focus on better management of the supply chain;
- improve efficiency in the use of raw materials, the reuse of recycled materials, and the generation and use of energy;
- continue to play a leadership role in balancing environmental and economic considerations;
- aggressively commit to longer term investment in R&D; and
- balance investments in technology by leveraging the capabilities of government, academe, and the chemical industry as a whole through targeted collaborative efforts in R&D.
Steps to Getting There
To meet its goals, the U.S. chemical industry should accomplish the following.Generate and use new knowledge by supporting R&D focused on new chemical science and engineering technologies to develop more cost-efficient and higher performing products and processes.
Capitalize on information technology by working with academe, federal and national laboratories, and software companies to ensure compatibility and to integrate computational tools used by the chemical industry. Develop partnerships for sharing information on automation techniques and advanced modeling.
Encourage the elimination of barriers to collaborative precompetitive research by understanding legislation and regulations that allow companies to work together during the initial stages of development.
Work to improve the legislative and regulatory climate by the reform of programs to emphasize performance rather than a specific method of regulatory compliance, and a greater consideration of cost, benefits, and relative risk.
Improve logistics efficiencies by developing new methods for managing the supply chain and by sponsoring an effort to shape information technology and standards to meet the industry's manufacturing and distribution needs.
Increase agility in manufacturing by planning manufacturing facilities capable of responding quickly to changes in the marketplace using state-of-the-art measurement tools and other technologies for design, development, scale-up, and optimization of production.
Harmonize standards, where appropriate, by working with governments within the United States and internationally, and with independent standards groups on nomenclature, documentation, product labeling, testing, and packaging requirements.
Create momentum for partnering by encouraging companies, government, and academe to leverage each sector's unique technical, management, and R&D capabilities to increase the competitive position of the chemical industry.
Encourage educational improvements through the advancement of strong educational systems and by encouraging the academic community to foster interdisciplinary, collaborative research and provide baccalaureate and vocational training through curricula that meet the changing demands of the industry.
TECHNOLOGY AREA 1: NEW CHEMICAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY
Chemical science is the most fundamental driver of advances within the chemical industry. Maintaining and improving the competitiveness of the U.S. chemical industry requires advances in three areas of chemical science: chemical synthesis, bioprocesses and biotechnology, and materials technology.
Chemical Science
CHEMICAL SYNTHESIS
The traditional tools of chemical synthesis in use today are organic and inorganic synthesis and catalysis. Synthesis is the efficient conversion of raw materials such as minerals, petroleum, natural gases, coal, and biomass into more useful molecules and products; catalysis is the process by which chemical reactions are either accelerated or slowed by the addition of a substance that is not changed in the chemical reaction. Catalysis-based chemical syntheses account for 60 percent of today's chemical products and 90 percent of current chemical processes.To take full advantage of the potential offered in chemical syntheses, industry should work to (1) develop new synthesis techniques incorporating the disciplines and approaches of biology, physics, and computational methods; (2) enhance R&D collaborations in surface and catalytic science relevant to commercial products and processes; (3) promote enhanced understanding of the fundamentals in synthesis, processing, and fabrication for structure control of complex molecular architectures; and (4) support fundamental studies to advance the development of chemistry in alternative reaction media (gas phase, water, supercritical fluid, etc.).
BIOPROCESSES AND BIOTECHNOLOGY
Humans have used biologically based processes (bioprocesses) since they first made cheese, leavened bread, and brewed spirits. Systematic exploration of biological catalysts (biocatalysts) began approximately 100 years ago with initial studies of enzymes, protein-based catalysts found in living organisms. Bioprocesses are increasingly used to produce chemical products, and there is a whole world of potential biocatalysts to be discovered.Each sector of the chemical enterprise has a role to play in advancing the use of biotechnology. (1) Industry should define R&D necessary to discover, develop, and provide more powerful and efficient biocatalysts, more effective process technology, and low-cost raw materials for bioprocesses. (2) Academe should broaden the knowledge base relevant to industrial bioprocesses (such as metabolic pathway engineering, enzyme discovery and optimization, and efficient reaction and separation technology) and use results of biotechnology research in health and agriculture to seek discoveries in bioprocessing. (3) Government should encourage, support, and participate in precompetitive biotechnology R&D, while supporting long-term, high-risk technology development and demonstration.
MATERIALS TECHNOLOGY
The development of new synthetic materials has fueled the growth of the chemical industry and revolutionized our society in the 20th century. Replacement of traditional materials such as metals, wood, glass, and natural fibers with synthetic polymers and composite materials has resulted in products with lower weight, better energy efficiency, higher performance and durability, and increased design and manufacturing flexibility.Further improvements in the design, fabrication, and quality of materials can be made only if industry (1) works together with academe to promote interdisciplinary approaches to materials science, including the integration of computational technology; (2) defines key needs in structure- property understanding and fundamental information, which can be used to design and tailor materials; (3) works with federal laboratories and academe to develop practical materials synthesis and processing technologies that focus on efficient manufacture of advanced materials systems; and (4) promotes efforts to define common approaches for disassembly and reuse of materials.
PROCESS SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY
Process science and engineering technology (PS&ET)-which includes engineering technologies; engineering science; and engineering design, scale-up, and construction-dates back to the 1930s and is the foundation for the development, scale-up, and design of chemical manufacturing facilities. When effectively integrated with basic science and enabling technologies, PS&ET offers great potential for bringing science and quantitative understanding to the service of the chemical industry, permitting much higher capital utilization, improved yields, reduced waste production, and improved protection of human health, safety, and the environment.To exploit the potential of PS&ET, industry should (1) work with government and academe to develop relevant process software and real-time measurement tools; (2) support engineering research in nontraditional reaction and separation systems (e.g., plasma, microwave, photochemical, biochemical, supercritical, cryogenic, reactive extraction and distillation, and membrane reactors); and (3) pursue the development of new concepts in flexible manufacturing, process technology for high-performance materials and structures, disassembly and reuse of materials, solids processing, and "smart" processes.
CHEMICAL MEASUREMENT
Chemical analysis is a critically important enabling technology essential to every phase of chemical science, product and process development, and manufacturing control. New knowledge and insight provided through chemical measurement greatly accelerate progress in chemical science, biotechnology, materials science, and process engineering by providing reliable data to evaluate current and emerging technologies.To ensure that chemical measurements meet the needs of the chemical industry in the future, the industry should (1) promote centers of excellence focused on chemical measurements and process analytical chemistry in order to probe molecular processes; (2) establish a task force to assess the chemical process industry's measurement priorities and related modeling and database needs; (3) develop instrumentation interfacing standards to enable use of distributed analytical networks and more efficient data acquisition and control systems; and (4) support development of high-performance spectrometers, as well as robust measurement techniques for real-time analyses.
COMPUTATIONAL TECHNOLOGIES
Computational technologies have a broad range of applications, from molecular modeling to process simulation and control. Today, these technologies are embodied in almost every aspect of chemical research, development, design, and manufacture. Those most critical to the chemical industry include computational molecular science, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), process modeling, simulation, operations optimization, and control.In the area of computational technologies, industry should (1) assess and assign priority to its CFD simulation needs and explore software paradigms for CFD tools; (2) support further development of high-performance desktop workstations, large and fast vector-processor machines, and highly parallel processors; (3) encourage improvements in national networks to allow high-speed communications, online collaborations, and efficient data transfer; (4) support experimental validation of, or challenges to, computational results; and (5) pursue public-private partnerships for illustrative implementation of larger advisory systems.
TECHNOLOGY AREA 2: SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
The chemical industry has concentrated on science and production and also has given substantial attention to manufacturing. But it has given less attention to the supply chain, defined as the critical link between the supplier, the producer, and the customer. Supply chain management comprises- planning and processing orders;
- handling, transporting, and storing all materials purchased, processed, or distributed; and
- managing inventory.
- encourage implementation of the Chemical Manufacturers Association's Responsible Care initiatives throughout all logistics operations, including third-party service providers;
- encourage the preparation of a benchmarking study to identify best practices and define performance targets in supply chain management;
- develop the logistics function to include the use of operations optimization tools on a worldwide basis;
- work with government to harmonize supply chain issues of packaging, labeling, documentation, handling, storage, and shipping; and
- encourage the development of information systems having compatible communications, data transmission, and information processing to support global supply chain activities.
TECHNOLOGY AREA 3: INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Throughout the chemical industry, the ways in which data are turned into information and used, managed, transmitted, and stored will be critical to its ability to compete. Improved and enhanced information systems are at the very heart of our vision, which sees the chemical industry operating highly efficiently and economically. To facilitate the advances in information systems required for its future, the industry should achieve the following:- Encourage technology providers to develop open systems, focusing on the capability of integrating specific sets of information into larger systems. This will require improvements in data security, quality, and reliability, as well as data compression technologies.
- Work with government to improve knowledge of molecular modeling and simulation as they apply to the chemical process industry by encouraging the government to enhance the transfer of process simulation and modeling techniques to the private sector.
- Encourage the development of standards for transferring models and model parameters to facilitate the use of modeling and simulation technologies.
- Encourage the development of expert systems and intelligent decision- support tools that are flexible enough to model multinational, multiproduct enterprises for use in business decision making.
TECHNOLOGY AREA 4: MANUFACTURING AND OPERATIONS
The revenue-generating capability of the chemical industry is derived from its capability to deliver chemicals and materials that satisfy customer needs. Manufacturing operations play a key role in that activity. Maintaining and improving the competitiveness of the U.S. chemical industry will require advances in six areas of manufacturing operations: (1) customer focus, (2) production capability, (3) information and process control, (4) engineering design and construction, (5) improved supply chain management, and (6) global expansion. To achieve improvements in these areas, the industry should- Encourage customer and supplier focus in a partnering fashion with emphasis on reliability of supply, continuous improvements in product quality and consistency, and responsiveness to change.
- Encourage improvement in production capabilities to continuously improve process safety, reduce the impact of manufacturing processes and products on the environment, and speed up access to product and process information, thus enabling quick response to change and easing management of improvements.
- Develop the technology to build plants in a shorter time and at lower cost to allow reconfiguration of plants as markets change.
- Enhance the supply chain enterprise system by giving it a chemical industry focus.
- Expand the capability for global operations and commerce.
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