| Version 66 (modified by gordonrachar, 15 years ago) |
|---|
TracNav menu
- An Introduction to ISO 15926
-
What is ISO 15926
- How Information Exchange is Supposed to Work
- How Information Exchange Actually Works
- How Information Exchange Works with ISO 15926
- How ISO 15926 Works
- A Bit of History
- Long Tail
-
Areas of Current Work
- Norwegian Continental Shelf
- MIMOSA
- JORD
- iRING
- Development of Standards
- Educational Material
- Getting Started With ISO 15926
- Other ISO 15926 Resources
-
Introduction to ''An Introduction to ISO 15926''
- ISO 15926 is Like a Babel Fish
- ISO 15926 is Like HTML
- ISO 15926 is Like English on Your Cell Phone
- About the Author
- ISO15926Primer_DiagnosticPage
Getting Started with ISO 15926
Status of this document: Working Draft
This document is open for feedback, please post questions and comments in the forum at the bottom of this page. You will need a login to post in the forum.
Contents
- Abstract
- ISO 15926 Roadmap
- Getting Ready
- Build a Business Case
- Decide What To Do
- Introductory Level: Getting Your Feet Wet
- Implement a Complete Facade
- Further Down the Road
- Acknowledgements
Abstract
Implementing ISO 15926 at the introductory end is relatively simple, with proven tools. Many organizations are realizing business benefits today. At the top end, ISO 15926 is evolving quickly, with new tools and implementation methods being developed, more or less, as we speak. This section proposes ideas for analyzing the information interoperability needs at your organization and planning the implementation of ISO 15926.
The purpose of this section is to give you a roadmap for implementing ISO 15926 at your organization. Of necessity, the roadmap will not be a single direct route to a single end-point. This means that you can start with limited goals, say, to map two interacting applications together using ISO 15926 part 4 (15926-4). Later on you can work up to a full 15926-9 façade.
So this section will not be like a route map from your travel agent showing the shortest route from your house to the beach. Instead it will be more like a roadmap of the entire countryside. For instance, if you lived in London, England and wanted to go the beach at Cannes, an easy way would be to take the Eurostar to the Gare de Nord train station in Paris, transfer to the Gare de Lyon, then take the train à grande vitesse (TGV) to Cannes.
On the other hand, if you channeled Rowan Atkinson and took a side road you would have a much more interesting journey.
Figure 1 - A More Interesting Route to the Beach
ISO 15926 Roadmap
The goal of ISO 15926 is to remove ambiguity. Data exchanges operate better when ambiguity is eliminated. But removing ambiguity between information sharing partners can be labor intensive. Thus, the higher the ambiguity, the higher the cost to implement effective and efficient data exchanges.
Figure 2 - ISO 15926 Roadmap
Getting Ready
With the exception of the first step, "Read the Friendly Manual", most of this isn't in a precise order. We suggest you start with something simple, and internal to your company.
Read the Primer
Well, actually, you're already reading it. But in case you linked directly to this page, start at the beginning. Select the "Primer Introduction" link in the big green box in the upper right hand corner of this page.
It is important to understand that ISO 15926 is a fundamentally different approach to making machines able to talk to each other and convey meaning. In the past we've viewed machine-to-machine communication as a technology problem, building more powerful processors, or writing more artful code. But we ran into the wall of not knowing how to handle the information. ISO 15926 sidesteps the powerful chips and Machiavellian code and focuses on modeling information.
Make a Map of Your System Landscape
You will need to know all the individual software applications your organization uses, where they get their input from, and where their output goes. Show all of the information exchanges. Your most important applications will probably already be mapped together either with custom programming or commercial middleware. Other information exchanges might be made manually with manual keyin every time, or exchange files in a neutral format, or perhaps ad hoc software. Show all of them, even if they seem to be working properly.
Join FIATECH or POSC Caeser - Get Involved in a Project
Right now (this is being written in the late winter of 2009) is a good time to join FIATECH or POSC Caeser. ISO 15926 is being developed right now. The developers are accessible. If you join, there will be people to assist you getting up to speed. Along with getting help, you may end up helping others, too. This is a good thing.
Outside of working on ISO 15926 many of us are competitors, so the natural tendancy is too horde information. But if we cooperate, then interoperability of information gets easier, projects become easier, and as projects become easier and cheaper, the owners (who in the end, pay for everything) will be able to do more. The pie gets bigger.
Build a Business Case
The very first line in this Primer explains why we need ISO 15926:
So we can exchange complex plant and project information easier and cheaper.
So if ISO 15926 actually accomplishes this, it shouldn't be too difficult to build a business case. Here are some ideas:
- Look at your system landscape.
- Which applications are linked?
- What could you do differently if more of them, or all of them, were able to exchange information easily?
- What does it cost your organization to maintain the existing links between applications?
- Is your organization forgoing opportunities to upgrade individual applications because doing so may break links to other applications?
All of these questions lead to justification to implement ISO 15926. Basically, you are counting the cost, in both financial and business efficiency terms, of the status quo.
If you don't like change, you're going to like irrelevance even less.
General Eric Shinseki, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army, as quoted by Tom Peters in Reimagine, DK 2003
Decide What To Do
Choose an Information Flow to Automate
Look for an opportunity to improve an information exchange by using ISO 15926. Preferably, the entire information exchange should be within your organization, as opposed to automating an exchange with a business partner. Choose something simple to start with if you have a choice.
A good place to start is mapping applications together using ISO 15926 Part 4 (ISO 1596-4). Here are three examples:
What you will be doing is represented by teh little red "ISO 15926" parallelogram in each diagram. It is deliberately ambiguous. The reason it is ambiguous is that there are different levels of compliance. With each one, you will be replacing the parallelogram with something different.
Gather Application Information
Dig into each application.
- Document the schema - catalogue what's there.
- Do this for the information that has to move, not necessarily everything.
- Cover any special requirements. For instance, uncover any relationships that have to be maintained. Understand them all.
Choose a Level of Compliance
Refer to Figure 2, above. The tools for building full compliance are getting easier all the time, but we suggest you start at an easy level. The work you invest at the easy level will not be wasted when you continue to full compliance later.
Introductory Level: Getting Your Feet Wet
Build a Team
At this level, you really only have one role:
Subject Matter Expert
This is the person who knows what your business does. For instance, the word pressure will show up in many places. An experienced process engineer, through experience, will know all the subtle differences that need to be understood.
- If your organization is a refinery or petrochemical plant, it should be a process engineer, or someone who knows a great deal about all of the chemical and physical processes, and all of the equipment.
- If your organization is an EPC, this person should be familiar with all of your work processes, and have an understanding of all engineering disciplines.
Get Familiar With the RDL/WIP
"Reference Data Library/Work In Progress"
- www.rdl.rdlfacade.org
Map Your Applications to RDL/WIP
Let us say that you want to exchange information about a Centrifugal Pump.
The first step is to look at each of the two applications you wish to exchange information and see what each calls a "Centrifugal Pump". For instance, one might call such a pump "P_Style_03", while the other might call it "Rotary_Pump_Centrifugal".
In the past you would have mapped "P_Style_03" to "Rotary_Pump_Centrifugal" using, say, a spreadsheet.
P_Style_03::Rotary_Pump_Centrifugal
Instead, you now find out what the RDS/WIP calls a centrifugal pump and map each application to that.
Looking at the RDS/WIP we find in fact that it calls a "Centrifugal Pump" a (surprise, surprise) "CENTRIFUGAL PUMP". So your maps would be:
P_Style_03::Centrifugal Pump - and - Centrifugal Pump::Rotary_Pump_Centrifugal
That's it. You have replaced the "Little Red Parallelogram" with this:
Figure 3 - Mapping with ISO 15926-4
Implement a Complete Facade
...
...
...
Build a Team
There are a number of roles to be filled. In theory, they can all be filled by one person. Alternatively, if the project is large enough, one role can be split between several people.
Subject Matter Expert
This is the person who knows what your business does. He will work primarily as a resource for the Information Modeler to give context to all the terminology and plant objects. For instance, the word pressure will show up in many places. An experienced process engineer, through experience, will know all the subtle differences that need to be understood.
- If your organization is a refinery or petrochemical plant, it should be a process engineer, or someone who knows a great deal about all of the chemical and physical processes, and all of the equipment.
- If your organization is an EPC, this person should be familiar with all of your work processes, and have an understanding of all engineering disciplines.
Information Modeler
This person will learn ISO 15926 methodology in information modeling. She will work with the Subject Matter Expert modeling all the plant objects and terminology.
Application Configurator
This person will need to know how to set up web services and how to create a database.
Project Manager
This is a typical project manager role. It will be helpful to have some prior exposure to computer programming projects.
Further Down the Road
Play with RDS/WIP
Understand the purpose of RDS/WIP.
Look at the classes that are there
Look at the types and subtypes
To know how deep to model, match the legacy system. For instance, to move an instrument list you may only need the class of instruments, not every subtype. It depends on how the legacy system at each end holds them. But the legacy system at each end may not be at the same level. While one application may only use the base class, the other may you subclasses.
Most of the steps will be the same as they would have been without ISO 15926, you will just be modeling the information to ISO 15926 standards.
See What Existing Models Are Available
...
...
Use the Ontology Browser
Use the ontology Browser to examine content to see if the mapping is correct.
...
...
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Robin Benjamins for the RDL/WIP drawings Figure 2 & 3 are based on.
