At University College London (UCL) a first course in Computer Aided Pr
ocess Engineering (CAFE) is taken by all students in their second year
. The course is designed to give an introduction to the use of compute
rs in the design and management of process plant. The emphasis of the
course is the use of tools for solving simple problems in process desi
gn. The course introduces students to computers for technical problem
solving in the context of Chemical Engineering rather than in separate
courses in computing and numerical analysis. The objective is that by
the end of the course all students, whether or not they have an incli
nation towards using computers, are comfortable with simple tools and
design concepts.