Lubrizol, a specialty chemicals manufacturer, is building a digital foundation to support its research and development teams, according to a sponsored article produced by MIT Technology Review's Insights custom content arm and partly based on comments from Girish Rao, the company's vice president of information technology.
The company is connecting business processes, modern data platforms, and cloud infrastructure. The goal is to combine decades of accumulated technical data with the expertise of chemists and engineers. Data scientists can identify patterns and model possibilities before researchers run physical experiments.
Rao said the technology is not meant to replace scientists. "It's not about replacing scientific judgment; it is about giving our scientists better tools."
Lubrizol uses "fusion teams" that bring together scientists, data scientists, and IT staff. According to Rao, the company starts with small pilot projects to build trust among team members. "Once the trust is built between the team members and they know what value they're about to create," Rao said, "things go a lot better."
The article says cloud infrastructure gives the company access to computing resources without building and maintaining its own data centers.
On sustainability, the article says digital modeling can help researchers evaluate more formulations, including materials such as starch and corn-based altern