In the absence of any systematic procedures, heuristics and hierarchical decomposition methods have been extensively used for screening and scoping of process flowsheets. This work introduces a new technology in this area in the form of Conceptual Programming. Conceptual Programming combines engineering insights and shortcut design models with mathematical programming technology. Using only basic information, Conceptual Programming targets the performance of the chemical process ahead of simulation and screens for the few promising layouts that need to be validated further with rigorous models. The basic idea of Conceptual Programming is first outlined with a sequencing problem where generic screening tool has been proposed as a mathematical programming model set up without the need for simulation, iterations or fine tuning of its parameters. Once constructed, the model is tested against an extensive list of examples without additional time or effort required in its development. The paper also illustrates applications of Conceptual Programming with complex separation system and reactor-separator problem. In all the cases Conceptual Programming outsmarts previous technology available in the form of heuristics, shortcut methods, pure mathematical programming or methods making use of expert systems and inference rules.