Speaking at the ECCMA ISO TC 184/SC 4 industry day in Marina del Rey, California, Dan Carnahan (CT 184 Consulting) presented the Oil & Gas Interoperability Standard (published in June 2019). Carnahan is technical advisor to the ISO/TC 184, automation and systems integration standards body. The OGI established how ISO 8000 is used across the life cycle of an oil and gas project (platform or refinery) to assure data quality as multiple suppliers at different stages in the project exchange large amounts of information.
The data exchange standard is said to provide a neutral, tool and application-independent exchange mechanism for use in EPC (engineering procurement contractor) or owner/operators’ internal systems. The concept is for a ‘virtual network’ that extends beyond construction and into operations and maintenance. The standard provides context-sensitive semantics and syntax. For example, a manufacturer can provide make and model information for the equipment supplied which an EPC can leverage in process flow, engineering design requirements before providing the final design documentation to the owner/operator. The intent is that all stakeholders provide their information in standard so as to interoperate withing the OGI.
Previously (today?), each stakeholder would use its own corporate dictionary to describe their products and services, often with confusing differences in meaning and syntax. Much information is exchanged in spreadsheets with little contextual information. The OGI provides a framework for a common data dictionary/catalog for use by all. ‘As more companies adopt the basic requirements for the data architecture, this will become the enabling factor for the digital business ecosystem’.
* As reported in the October 2019 ECCMA Newsletter.
Comment: The standardization of plant and process data has a long and checkered history from ISO 15926 to Cfihos which have both provided ‘frameworks’ for data exchange. These have proven hard and expensive to populate with real data and have thus had limited take-up in real-world projects.
© Oil IT Journal - all rights reserved.