Applications of computer integrated process engineering in the chemical industry

It has been a target in the chemical industry for many years to integrate process engineering applications. Most presentations in the past discussed the question: ``What is next? What is tomorrow or in the year 2000?'' Typically those papers were written by authors from the academic area or from major chemical companies, which have invested a strong effort in developing in-house software for a long time. So, their applications are completely different from the possibilities of an engineer, who can access only software from external sources.