DuPont production targets

Also in existence is the joint-venture web site for leading elastomers suppliers that include Bayer, CK Witco Corp., DSM Elastomers, DuPont-Dow Elastomers L.L.C., Flexsys, M.A. Hanna Rubber Compounding, and Zeon Chemicals L.P. They targeted to create www.ElastomerSolutions.com, a global marketplace and customer-focused, web-based community devoted solely to the sale of elastomers and associated products. 

A prime example of such an approach in the chemical industry is DuPont The American giant has established a powerful target-setting process that starts with so-called critical operating tasks (COTs). These are derived from financial origins at the business unit level, and cascade down through the plant to the production line. The system creates transparency for each production line employee about his or her targets and about how the individual s performance is linked to that of the whole unit (Fig. 12.4). 

A survey on molecular biology products (Ausubel et at, 1991) indicated that for nitrocellulose about 70% of respondents preferred S S NC (other manufacturers < 10%) but that the preference for nylon membranes differed little among Schleicher Schuell, Dupont NEN and Amersham. In the same survey, respondents had no clear preference for either nylon or nitrocellulose for Southern hybridization but a clear preference for nitrocellulose in the case of colony/plaque hybridization (where concentration of target is sufficient highly but background should be suppressed). 

The impressive results we have demonstrated with bio-3G prompted the Department of Energy (DOE) to award a multimillion dollar grant over four years to DuPont, Diversa, and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to use the biomass from our 3G process as fuel. Our target is to demonstrate the use of renewable resources (corn sugar) and simultaneous production of fuel from the biomass—a biorefinery as an economically viable concept (Box 8). 

Amino acids, citric acid, lactic acid, propanediol, penicillin G, synthetic drug intermediates, and therapeutic proteins are among the industrially relevant products of fermentation and cell culture that have been targets for metabolic engineering. Some ofthis work has been adopted by industry (see [72], section 16.4.1). The major aim was to optimize the yields of industrial products, which was efficiently realized with Corynebacterium glutamicum for lysine and tryptophan, and at the Dupont company for 1,3-propane diol production [107-109]. 

By 1991, after closing its plants in Waynesboro, Virginia and Camden, New Jersey, DuPont had finally withdrawn from the acrylic fiber business, leaving Monsanto and Cytec as the only major U.S. producers. The same trend has occurred in Western Europe and the developed countries of Asia. New production capacity in apparel markets continues to be added, but this is restricted to the developing countries. The rest of the world is focusing on restructuring their product mix, targeting new, nontraditional markets. Recent history and trends in the acrylic fiber industry have been reviewed in more detail by Matzke [17]. 

---