early innovators - chau-chyun chen interview.pdf

8/10/2019 Early Innovators - Chau-Chyun Chen interview.pdf

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30th

Anniversary Industry Reflections and Future Views: A Look Back with

AspenTechsEarly Innovators

Q&A with Chau-Chyun Chen

We recently sat down with Chau-Chyun Chen, AspenTechs Vice President of Technology, to

look back on AspenTechs 30 yearsof Optimization. Below are a few highlights from our

conversation.

Join ing AspenTech

I joined the company back in 1981, quite some time ago. I was inspired by the founder of the

company, Professor Larry Evans of MIT. I had just graduated from MIT, and Larry told me thatif you were to work for AspenTech you would be solving problems for many companies, but if

you were to go to another company, you would be solving problems for one company. That was

quite inspiring to me; I would rather spend my time solving problems for the industry and for

many companies versus solving problems for one company. Thatsthe main reason I joined

AspenTech.

At the time, I had just graduated from MIT and my first assignment was to implement the

technology I developed at MIT into

Aspen. At MIT, I had been working on an

innovative process modeling technologyfor so-called electrolytic processes; at the

time it was not possible to rigorously

model chemical processes with

electrolytes. Once I joined AspenTech,

my first job was in fact to transfer that

innovative technology from MIT into

Aspen and to work with customers to

make use of the technology.

At the time, of course, AspenTech wasvery small; we had around 10 people and

we were growing slowly and steadily.

Because of the small size of AspenTech,

every person and every engineerincluding the founder Larry Evanshad to do everything; we

had to do sales, we had to do marketing, we had to do customer support and teaching and

The biggest challenge back at that time

was the extremely low computing power

we had as engineers to explore computing

and chemical engineering. It was a dark

age of computing some 30 years agowe

didnt even have a computer when

AspenTech was formed.


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everything so it was quite a different environment. Of course Aspen has evolved into a big-sized

company and we are now specialized in many fields.

Chal lenges in the early days

I would say the biggest challenge back at that time was the extremely low computing power we

had as engineers to explore computing and chemical engineering. It was a dark age of computing

some 30 years ago: we didnt havelaptops, didnt have internet, didnt have emails, didnt have

word processors or Excel. Think about a time without all these great tools we have today. For

example, we were renting CPU timewe didnt even have a computer when AspenTech was

formed. We had to arrange CPU time at MIT and, in order to save money, we had to run the code

and testing after midnight. Just think about communicating with customers, not by emails or text

messages, but by telex and cables and so on.

I have been with Aspen for quite some time so I have worked on many different projects, but I

think the most significant task has been to convince customers in the energy and chemical

industries of the value of modern process modeling and simulation technology. They didnt

believe in it at first, but through working with them one plant at a time, one customer at a time,

they become convinced that it was possible to model a chemical plant rigorously with first

principles and that the model can be used for scale-up, process design and so on. Today, of

course, the industry is convinced, and they want a model for every plant and every corporate

asset they have. Its that transformation that is most exciting. We spent a lot of time to make that

happen.

How AspenTechs approach to product development has changed over the last 30 years

From the very beginning we believed in modeling and simulation, so it was a technology push

we were pushing the technology, from fundamentals to actual practice. But today people believe

in the technology, and what the customer wants is the integration and ease of use, like an

intuitive user interface, for example. So I would say the way we approach development has

shifted from technology push by individual visionary innovators to systematic planning,

implementation and integration of various technologies.


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AspenTechskey innovations in process optimization over the last th ree decades

The foundation of the business we are in today is modeling. Therefore I would say the most

important achievement of AspenTech over the past 30 years would be the way we modelchemical processes based on first

principles for wide varieties of chemical

processes. For example, modeling for

petrochemical or pharmaceutical requires

different chemical engineering principles.

Over time, many of those chemical

engineering principles have been

developed and captured in process

modeling technology. That is the most

important achievement of AspenTech: thereal understanding of chemical engineering

principles that are the foundations of the

chemical processes of the various

industries we serve and also the abilityto

translate that understanding into models

based on first principles, based on

fundamentals of how chemical molecules interact and react. Then from there we can apply

simulation technologies such as equation oriented solution algorithms, real time optimization,

dynamic simulation, planning, or scheduling, but they are all built on top of this ability to model

chemical processes based on first principles.

The future of software engineer ing for the process industry

I would want to focus on three key business drivers for the industry that we serve. The first is the

fact that the process industries today face major issues withbeing more green how to

increase energy efficiency and how to make use of different feed stocks such as bio stocks

instead of petroleum feed stocks and how to deal with CO2 and climate change for the interest of

environment and sustainability. So I think that is one key business driver that we need to payattention to while we think about the future of our industry. A second main driver I see involves

advances in chemical engineering science. Again I am coming back to the point that we are

developing engineering software to serve the industrywe are not just software engineers. There

are many advances in chemical engineering science that generate new knowledge, new ideas,

new processes, new products; we need to understand those advances in chemical engineering

science. The third driver is, of course, the nature of IT technology. The computing power and the

That is the most important achievement of

AspenTech: the real understanding of

chemical engineering principles that are

the foundations of the chemical processes

of the various industries we serve and also

the ability to translate that understanding

into models


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way engineers make use of it has changed dramatically, and will change even more rapidly in

coming years. I would say that the future of our industry depends on these key business drivers:

the needs of our customers, the advances in chemical engineering science, and the evolution of

IT knowledge.

About Chau-Chyun Chen:

Chau-Chyun Chen, VP of Technology and a founder of Aspen Technology, Inc., is currently

responsible forbasic research in AspenTechs process modeling and simulation business areas.

Before joining AspenTech, he was a researcher on the Aspen Project at MIT. He received a BS

degree in chemistry from the National Taiwan University in 1973 and ScD and MS degrees in

chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1980 and in 1977.

early innovators - chau-chyun chen interview.pdf

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