Richard BAUR, representative of Shell in CO-LaN and President of CO-LaN Management Board, stated the objectives of the CAPE-OPEN survey then gave the current status of the survey, as of October 2018. The current audience of the survey has an affinity to CAPE-OPEN. More efforts are needed to reach the larger CAPE community. Consequently the survey remains open and CO-LaN is asking for help in distributing the survey.
Richard BAUR went on with describing the preliminary findings. One finding of great interest is that the respondents are using in average more than two process simulators and more than two thermodynamic packages. It is also very significative to notice that many respondents are using in-house developed unit operations. This shows that interoperability between PMEs and PMCs may be needed in many cases, with CAPE-OPEN as a potential mean to achieve that interoperability.
It was also noticed that the ease of use of CAPE-OPEN was considered good or very good by 50% of the respondents who are users of CAPE-OPEN. However 50% considered CAPE-OPEN difficult to use or requiring expert level support. So the CAPE-OPEN technology delivers what is expected by many users while the need to lower the entrance level of CAPE-OPEN seems present. It should be mentioned that no difference is made in this analysis between end-users of CAPE tools and developers of CAPE tools.
So while CAPE-OPEN technology appears mature, there is room for improvement on ease of use and implementation.
These aspects were specifically addressed throughout the presentations and discussions at the CAPE-OPEN 2018 Annual Meeting.