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ISO 15926 Primer
Status of this document: [Working Draft]
This is the beginning of the Primer for ISO 15926. It is open for feedback in the forum at the bottom of this page. You need a login to post in the forum.
Author:
- Gord Rachar, mailto:Gordon.Rachar@…
Table of Contents
- Abstract
- Why Do We Need ISO 15926?
- How ISO 15926 Makes Sharing Information Easier
- Poster Child Examples
Abstract
[Enter abstract]
Why Do We Need ISO 15926?
The short answer is: "So we can exchange complex plant information with each other easily."
A slightly longer answer is: "To mitigate the current high costs of rekeying, and reformatting information to move it from one proprietary system to another."
For example, take the task of designing and sepcifying a process instrument for a plant modification. Imagine how many times information has to be rekeyed after the instrument is basically designed, until it is installed and commissioned in the target plant:
- From the process and simulation design software to the design datastore, likely a datasheet in Excel, or a database.
- After transmitting this datasheet to many potential vendors, each vendor will have to enter some of the data values into proprietary software to make a selection.
- Each vendor will have to enter some data values back into the original data sheet (assuming an editable electronic copy of the datasheet is being used) and transmit it back to the engineer.
- The design engineer will rekey certain data values into a bid tabulation to make a purchasing decision.
- Certain data values from the winning bid will be rekeyed into the engineer's premanent database.
- After transmitting the individual data sheets to the owner after commisioning, they are typically rekeyed into an Asset Management System.
The situation is improving. A few years ago the datasheets would have been printed and faxed to the vendors who would manually add what they had to and fax them back--now we email editable electronic files. And there are proposals to streamline the final handover so that it is already in the form required for the owner's Asset Management System--but the configuration costs speak to the complixity of the issue.
What we need is a way for each participant's software to be able to communicate complex information to each other without having to know in advance what needs to be communicated.
A Metaphor - ASCII Text
How ISO 15926 Makes Sharing Information Easier
ISO 15926 is a world-wide system of rendering complex plant objects into a common format so that software developers do not have to ask the question "In what format will my users receive plant information?"
If everyone were to use ISO 15926 to store information about plant objects, the problem of moving information between EPCs, between EPCs and Owners, and within an Owners operations, would simply cease to exist.
A consortium of EPCs could collaborate designing a plant, each using its chosen plant design system with proprietary work processes. They could share information without having to know anything about each other's data storage format beforehand. Vendor's and EPC's software could connect to each other passing information back and forth. Turnover from EPC to Owner would be a non-issue.
The Future with ISO 15926
All plant information will be stored in ISO 15926 format. EPCs will use a Plant Design System to create the plant information initially. Owners will take delivery of the database and without doing anything, open it with a Plant Operating System. Their maintenance department will open the same dataset with a Plant Maintenance System. Each application will take the pieces it needs and ignore the rest.
The Opportunity
With a common language for complex plant information, enterpreners will be able to write niche applications easier. For instance, someone might write an optimizer for a certain process that simply opens the plant datastore and finds the particular process information it needs. Since the format of the input information is no longer an issue, software developers can concentrate on the new value-added functionality.
Poster Child Examples
We need an example of a use of ISO 15926 that saved a bazillion dollars from each of the following:
- Equipment Vendor
- Software Vendor
- EPC
- Owner/Operator
For this page we will only use "teaser" summaries (50-100 words). On other pages we will go into more detail giving readers a path to follow.
