Extension of Computer-Aided Process Engineering Applications to Environmental Life Cycle Assessment and Supply Chain Management

The potential of computer-aided process engineering (CAPE) tools to enable process engineers to improve the environmental performance of both their processes and across the life cycle (from cradle-to-grave) has long been proffered. However, this use of CAPE has not been fully achieved, largely because of the complexity of the systems being modeled. Traditional approaches to this problem often prove to be inadequate due to the inability of component simulations to interact and share data amongst various stakeholders. This current effort involves toward developing and implementing a data model that will enable users to conduct environmental evaluations not just of a single process, but on the entire supply chain. This project utilizes and expands emerging information technology paradigms such as web services, web agents and distributed computing for use by the various stakeholders to evaluate individual industrial facilities within the context of the industrial supply chain and across industrial sectors.