The synthesis of intensified simple column configurations (ISC) for multicomponent distillations is presented. The ISC configurations use less columns and less heat exchangers than the traditional distillation configurations (TDC), while they keep the similar structural simplicity as the TDC configurations that each column produces an overhead product with a condenser and a bottoms product with a reboiler. For an N-component zeotropic mixture, an easy-to-use procedure is first formulated to generate the ISC configurations from the simple column configurations (SC) with only sharp splits. Then, the procedure is generalized to produce the ISC configurations from any traditional distillation configurations (TDC) with both sharp and sloppy splits. It is demonstrated that the procedure can explicitly modify the TDC configurations step-by-step to systematically generate all the possible ISC configurations. The ISC configurations have the potential to reduce both energy consumption and capital costs than the TDC configurations, at the same time, they have the similar structural simplicity in terms of systems design, control and operation as the traditional distillation configurations. Therefore, they constitute an advantageous alternatives subspace when looking for an optimal system for a specific application in both new design and retrofit of distillation plants. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.