Caterpillar
Caterpillar, the Peoria-based heavy equipment company employed rapid prototyping to dramatically slash the amount of time required to design and evaluate new products. Their wheel and backhoe loaders were the first commercial U.S. products prototyped largely in virtual reality. Caterpillar announced their plans to begin a rapid prototyping project in their 1990 First Quarter Report to the stockholders.
"At Caterpillar we maintain our competitive edge by understanding our customers' expectations and needs and then seeking out technology to satisfy those needs. We understand the importance of collaboration and teamwork. We know the value of having the best and the brightest as part of the team. Our 12-year participation in NCSA's Private Sector Program has evolved into a strategic partnership consistent with these beliefs. We have seen the evolution of technology available from NCSA move from supercomputing to high-performance computing to visualization to data mining and knowledge management. The breakthroughs we have gained as a result of our relationship have assisted us in product design, manufacturing processes, and marketing. It's been a definite win-win."
— Sherril K. West, Vice President, Technical Services Division, Caterpillar, Inc.
Eli Lilly
Through its work with NCSA, Eli Lilly helped inaugurate the era of rational drug design by simulating the crystal structure of phospholipase A2, the human enzyme implicated in toxic shock. They are currently using scientific visualizations to synthesize molecular agents that suppress leukotrienes, the inflammatory agents that cause lungs to stiffen and fill with fluids during asthmatic attacks.
"Without the model of the NCSA, its staff, scientists, consultants, engineers and software and visualization experts, Lilly's present success in supercomputing would have been impossible."
— Dr. Riaz Abdulla, from Eli Lilly Research Laboratories
FMC
FMC collaborated with NCSA to speed the development of safer, more effective pesticides by visualizing compounds and testing their interactions in 3D. The researchers isolated and visualized the building blocks that dictate insect growth enzymes and receptors as well as their target sites.
J. P. Morgan Chase
J. P. Morgan Chase manages financial risks for its clients, allowing corporations to focus on business execution instead of financial market risk. Managing portfolios of global financial exposures requires vast amounts of computation plus intuitive ways to present ever-changing, interrelated data. NCSA's teamwork and expertise helped adapt high-performance computing techniques to the firm's mission-critical risk management functions. Additionally NCSA's data visualization experience helped J. P. Morgan Chase develop visual paradigms that expressed the key features of this complex risk landscape.
Kodak
Kodak developed photo CD technology capable of zooming in, enlarging, cropping, or rotating images transmitted over the Internet. Kodak's file format stores pictures at five levels of quality, from low to high resolution, and supports full 24-bit color management so that images are photo-realistic.
"In my experience at Motorola and Kodak, we looked to NCSA in our long-term partnerships to be at the front of evolving "high-performance computing" technology, demonstrating the value and applications, and making the technology available to test-drive solving corporate problems."
— George M.C. Fisher, Retired Chairman and CEO, Eastman Kodak Company Former Chairman and CEO, Motorola, Inc.
Motorola
Motorola modeled and simulated the deployment of a new digital cellular telephone system based on code division multiple access (or CDMA) at a level of detail previously considered impossible. As a result of their modeling, Motorola is now able to offer a higher degree of service with a cellular system.
Motorola used NCSA's advanced high-performance computing systems to simulate and model enhancements to advanced cellular system operation that have resulted in the development of a new Rescue Channel design concept. This breakthrough has been officially accepted for a new industry standard, which will mean significant improvements in cellular telephone service.
"One of the key reasons for establishing our relationship with NCSA in 1988 was to gain early access to high-performance computing expertise and technology. NCSA's leadership in system modeling and simulation helped us gain a competitive market position in cellular system development. Our relationship with NCSA enhances our ability to move our research from promise to reality."
— Dennis Roberson, Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Motorola, Inc.
Sears, Roebuck and Co.
Working with NCSA, Sears, Roebuck and Co. was able to utilize high-performance information technology tools to develop database management techniques to make competitive breakthroughs in knowledge management of point-of-sale procedures and fraudulent transactions. The partnership with NCSA resulted in Sears learning how to organize and analyze massive amounts of data so that it became useful information with positive bottom-line impacts that reduced cost, increased revenue, and improved staff efficiency.
