International competition, growing ever fiercer, and product life cycles which are becoming shorter all the time demand a significant contraction times from the chemical industry, of the implementation times from the conception of a product to its market introduction. A significant contribution to rapid and cost- effective detailed planning of a new production process is provided by the combination of process simulation and an experimental technique developed within BASF AG, i.e, the "miniplant" technique. This article starts by demonstrating the importance of process simulation in the individual phases of process development. It explains the characteristic features of the miniplant technique, what objectives are pursued by employing his technique, and what advantages ccan be achieved, compared with setting up and operating pilot ants. Finally, two examples illustrate it is possible, by combining process simulation and miniplant technique, to develop processes more rapidely and to scale them up directly from the laboratory to production level.