Much of my research has been concerned with software tools for the construction and manipulation of process models. One major strand of this work involves the development of generic modelling concepts (e.g. for the modelling of general plant operating procedures or of general ways of describing distributed systems). A second strand concerns the mathematical techniques that are necessary for the solution of the large-scale simulation and optimisation problems. My past work in this area contributed to the development of the SPEEDUP and gPROMS modelling software, both of which are used by industry and academia worldwide. We are currently designing a next-generation modelling tool that aims to provide a significant increase in our capability of describing very complex processes.

Another area of research interest is that of process planning and scheduling, from a single multipurpose plant to, increasingly, complex production and distribution networks and entire supply chains. The emphasis here is, again, on the development of general modelling concepts and also on the solution of the large combinatorial optimisation problems that typically describe these applications.

Finally, we have recently become interested in computational chemistry techniques, and particularly in ways in which these can be tightly integrated within product and process design computations. For the specific case of molecular dynamics computations, we have identified a number of mathematical and numerical obstacles to this integration, and have been developing formal ways of overcoming them.

 Selected Research Projects

 "Design of a Next-Generation Process Modeling Tool" in collaboration with Jens Neumann and Dr. Ben Keeping

     Teaching activities