Patent ID: 7966227

Claim:
A computer-based method of selling a customised, configured chemical separation system, comprising the steps of: selecting, by a user, hardware modules defining said chemical separation system, wherein data related to the hardware modules are stored in a database accessed by a configuration tool executed by the computer; using the configuration tool to generate configuration data based on the user-selected hardware modules, said configuration data including information relating to one or more properties selected from the group of: construction details, modularised control software, process flow charts, process settings, capacity, and a graphical representation of the user's customised chemical separation system; determining by the configuration tool a selected hardware module is compatible with previously selected hardware modules and represents a non-optimised hardware module selection; calculating by the configuration tool how to improve the performance of the non-optimised hardware selections; suggesting one or more hardware modules based on the calculations that optimizes the chemical separation system performance; accepting the selected one or more hardware modules wherein the selected hardware module is determined to be compatible with the previously selected hardware modules and optimises the chemical separation system performance; using the configuration tool to present in real-time the user's hardware selection accepted by the configuration tool and configuration data as a user-viewable graphical representation; and providing the configuration data to a sales company and using the configuration data as a manufacturing specification of the user's customised chemical separation system.