Development and Evaluation of a Groupware System to Support Chemical Design Processes

This article presents the concept of a groupware system adapted to the early stages of chemical design processes. To ensure best usability for chemical engineers during the chemical plant design, a field study in an international chemical group was carried out. Several theoretical concepts of cooperation and workspace design models were analyzed to meet the requirements of cooperative and distributed work during the design process. Based on this, a new groupware concept was developed that consists of 4 main design elements. This concept was evaluated empirically for the relevance of the design elements and efficiency of use.