This paper considers various factors affecting system organization for speech understanding research. The structure of the Hearsay system based on a set of cooperating, independent processes using the hypothesize-and-test paradigm is presented. Design considerations for the effective use of multiprocessor and network architectures in speech understanding systems are presented: control of processes, interprocess communication and data sharing, resource allocation, and debugging are discussed.See also: IEEE Xplore.In IJCAI-73: THIRD INTERNATIONAL JOINT CONFERENCE ON ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, 20-23 August 1973, Stanford University Stanford, California.