With increasing global competitiveness and compelling reasons for business
optimization, researchers have realized that an 'integrated approach' is th
e key to solve problems of the real world. Electronic Environment for Proce
ss Investigation and Management Analysis (ePIMA) provides an environment, w
hich is capable of integrating existing diverse tools and technologies to e
nable problem solving. The users of such an environment are students, resea
rchers and businesses. In this work, the proposed environment is demonstrat
ed by solving an industrial example, which studies the importance of coordi
nation in business level. The future educational goals of this project are
summarized in the last section. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights r
eserved.