MIDLAND, Mich. – Dow (NYSE: DOW) was honored with a CIO 100 Award for its Smart Search tool, powered by CAS, which accelerates R&D and helps provide the best, most sustainable solutions for customers. The US CIO 100 awards recognize 100 organizations driving groundbreaking projects in enterprise IT and the companies and teams that create them. “Smart Search for Dow demonstrates what can happen when we enable traditional innovation with technology,” stated Melanie Kalmar, corporate vice president, chief information officer and chief digital officer. “Development is enhanced, meaning Dow can deliver better, safer and more sustainable solutions faster than before. We are honored to receive this award for such an important project.”
Smart Search revolutionizes the search process for chemicals and saves research time and cost by identifying leads for testing materials amongst the 200+ million known chemicals. The tool combines the world’s largest scientist-curated data collection from CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society, with an intuitive user interface.
Whether identifying materials with specific physical or chemical properties or replacing substances of concern with improved hazard profiles, Smart Search enables researchers with digital search capability. Complex searches can be done within minutes by use of specialized technologies that extract a multitude of attributes about a compound and its 3D structure with precision. Dow can combine the power of the tool with its own computational chemistry expertise to further refine the material set identified by Smart Search.
“This capability will lead to efficient solutions throughout industrial chemistry, catalysis and other sectors to continue producing highly sustainable and safe materials across the industry,” said A.N. Sreeram, senior vice president and chief technology officer. “This achievement also serves as an excellent recognition of the partnership between IT and R&D to create strong joint innovations.”
According to CIO, winners “are using IT in innovative ways to deliver business value, whether by creating competitive advantage, optimizing business processes, enabling growth, or improving relationships with customers. The award is an acknowledged mark of enterprise excellence.”