In this talk I will review several real-world applications developed at the University of Waikato over the past 15 years. These include the use of near infrared spectroscopy coupled with data mining as an alternate laboratory technique for predicting compound concentrations in soil and plant samples, and the analysis of gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GCMS) data, a technique used to determine in environmental applications, for example, the petroleum content in soil and water samples. I will then briefly discuss how experience with these applications has led to the development of an open-source framework for application development.