An apparatus and method for chemical synthesis, the method includes accessing a recipe, the recipe including a sequence of one or more processing steps for the chemical synthesis. The processing steps including one or more steps. The recipe is executed by sorting the processing steps and executing the one or more selected steps prior to executing other steps. The chemical synthesis is monitored by providing status data, indicating a status of the execution and enabling input of control data to modify execution based on the status data or user-initiated modification. Information related to the status of the execution is displayed, typically as a graphical representation of a process action.