Workflow and information centered support of design processes—the IMPROVE perspective

Abstract

Design process excellence is considered a major differentiating factor between competing enterprises since it determines the constraints within which plant operation and supply chain management are confined. The most important prerequisite to establish such design process excellence is a proper management of all the design process activities and the associated information. Starting from an analysis of the characteristics of chemical engineering design processes, some important open research issues are identified. They include the development of an integrated information model of the design process, a number of innovative functionalities to support collaborative design, and the a-posteriori integration of existing software tools to an integrated design support environment. Some of the results obtained and experiences gained in the last years in the collaborative research center IMPROVE at RWTH Aachen University are presented.