In this paper, the first in a two-part series, we explore an agent based solution approach to the multiperiod design of azeotropic separation systems. Asynchronous Teams (A-Teams). a software organization that has been successfully applied to combinatorial optimization problems in other disciplines, is applied to this chemical process system design problem. A-Teams is a framework in which multiple design techniques can work harmoniously in the solution of a problem too demanding for any one method. We introduce a simple architecture for constructing A-Teams that incorporates the use of persistent data. Several approaches for generating improved multiperiod azeotropic design solutions are developed and are used simultaneously in a large-scale demonstration. The software organization is found to be capable of developing and improving a population of preliminary designs for the multiperiod azeotropic design problem.