The present invention provides an operation editor that includes a user interface
for programming operations to be performed by a chemical process machine. Through
the user interface the user may specify that one or more of the steps in an operation
be variable. Such variable steps may subsequently be edited by the same or another
user when the operation is incorporated into a procedure. Steps in the operation
that are not variable are fixed and may not be edited when the operation has been
incorporated into a procedure. Furthermore, individual fields in a variable step
may be either variable or fixed. The present invention also provides a procedure
editor that includes a user interface, which allows the user to edit variable steps
within the procedure's operations. The procedure editor presents to the user for
editing only those steps within the procedure that are variable.