One of the significant changes occurring at present in the industrial software control world is the shift away from UNIX-based operating systems to Microsoft’s Windows NT for small- to medium-scale process control and IT applications (Bocock, 1996; Tinham, 1996). This trend has been greatly influenced by the PC. Their ever-increasing processing power (now on a par with some workstations), low cost and the availability of a robust, secure operating system (Windows NT) has made the PC a very important element in the control and management environment. As a result, all software being developed or evaluated is compatible with the PC platform running under Windows 95 or Windows NT. This has important impli cations in terms of cost as it now feasible to offer low cost solutions to SMEs based on these technologies. This combination of low cost solutions with the friendly environment of the PC/Windows operating system is a useful enticement in encouraging industry to take up this new software technology initiative (see Fig. 2)