• To provide a Best Practice Guide to Process Analysis based upon results and experience of CPACT Projects
• Develop an intranet based information server (known as the CPACT Information Web Server)
• To support the technology transfer from CPACT projects into the industrial environment
• To facilitate sharing of knowledge and ideas between the project members, academics, industrialists and the CPACT membership at large.

Achievements

As a collaborative research and application organization, the Centre of Process Analysis and Control Technology (CPACT) has a large research team and involves three universities and more than ten premier UK companies working together for seven individual projects. As the information from CPACT projects continues to grow rapidly it is important that a system is in place to collect and cross reference it. The organization needs a management system to store information, to transfer information across whole project teams and to provide a best guide for knowledge discovery.

For information transfer and knowledge discovery in CPACT projects, a World Wide Web (WWW) based Intranet, called the CPACT Information Web Server (IWS), was developed to establish a multi-user multi-purpose, chemical information management system. The CPACT IWS is capable of handling all information from CPACT projects, and has user-friendly interface for information submission. It has a powerful search engine, and metadata internal publishing protocol, and well-conceived security.

Compared with general information management, the information systems for chemistry and chemical engineering cover wider areas and contain more complex information. Chemical information within academic research institutes and chemical companies involves many different fields: chemical structure, chemical reactions, spectra, screening data, internal reports, patent information, bibliographic information etc.(Donner, 1996). When chemists start to develop new processes, they need to consider all kinds of relevant information: compounds, reactions, process parameters, and also reference papers and reports. These procedures of information searching may take researchers a long time.

The earlier ideas to solve these problems are to create database systems, in order that chemists can get relevant data sets easily. There are some interesting works on creating databases. (Lara-Rosano, 1998, Studer, 1998) However, even though chemists can retrieve different sets of data from the database, it is still a challenge to analyse these data to find very useful information efficiently. Analysis and management of data and information are still the important and difficult tasks to capture knowledge as a best guide for chemical process development.

One of the first milestones in this project was a System feasibility analysis, in which it became clear that the route to provide the required system would be to use Microsoft suite software based around Windows NT Server. After this the IWS was designed and optimised. One of the most important tasks in designing an Intranet site is to optimise the site structure. A well-thought out structure will be the blueprint helping designers organize the site effectively and webmasters manage the network systematically. Meanwhile Intranet users can browse Intranet information easier and quicker by optimal web site structure. The CPACT IWS structure can be briefly described below:

There are some key features which make the CPACT IWS especially helpful. The IWS is designed with an infrastructure able to contain original information (i.e. in native format, no need to convert file format types) and manage information transfer. Any system allows users to browse information from the web platform, but as additional facility, IWS also provides a rapid search engine to help users get information quickly. Furthermore an information submission function can be created using a metadata protocol in order that users can upload their own file in original format.

Based on Structured Query Language (SQL) search, IWS search engine browses all information stored on the IWS, both web pages and other format documents. The search engine also provides multiple platforms for people working at different level, for example management information can be searched independent of technical information, al et. Metadata Protocol document submission is another significant feature which allows Intranet co-workers to upload their own files, therefore information can be captured by the server automatically. The metadata form designed for authors. The metadata form allows those submitting documents to describe their feature, and also defines where the information will be stored in the database.

The development time for this project was beset with both technical and personnel problems, which have caused the full implementation to be somewhat slower than anticipated. University firewalls have rendered the inclusion of an automatic publishing system impossible, as this would have cause too much exposure to the internet as a whole. The project also had 3 different post doctoral workers helping with the development, but none staying longer than 1 year, and 2 subsequent appointments were less than 6 months each.

Subsequently the IWS system has been under utilised, as it has been difficult to upload all the relevant data to the system. This is currently been overhauled, as the data is now available for upload locally (i.e. no need to be automatically updated remotely), and in the coming months the system will be fully populated, and should be fully operational by the start of CPACT Phase 2.