A major milestone was achieved today on The challenging route to digitalisation of the oil, gas, chemicals and nuclear sectors. The absence of a common data standard has driven significant and unnecessary costs by obstructing efficient exchange of information across the extensive and complex supply chains in both projects and assets.
With the agreement reached today to publish a new version of the CFIHOS Standard aligned with the requirements of the full supply chain, these issues are likely to become history.
Under the auspices of USPI, a consortium of ca. 80 owner operators, EPC contractors, equipment suppliers and service companies have worked intensively for several years to align on a common data specification for capital projects. The resulting CFIHOS standard includes a data model, a dictionary of common terms and definitions, a set of contractual specification documents and implementation guides. Its objective is to achieve standardisation of the data requirements issued by the owner-operators to the supply chain. It is expected to significantly reduce the cost of generating the data that the owner operators need. Furthermore, the standard enables integration and data reuse across the many hundred pieces of software used in a capital project; providing the foundation for the Digital Twin. Custodianship of the CFIHOS standard will transition to International Oil and Gas Producers (IOGP) organization by the end 2019; with the objective to transition it to ISO in the longer run.
Since 2012, USPI has led this journey; which was initiated based on Shell’s internal information handover standard. After starting the project with 12 companies, the team has grown to over 80 companies, all working to bring the standard to where it is today. It has been a truly fantastic example of industry collaboration, fulfilling the vision and mission of USPI: To develop, maintain and promote the use of international standards and best practices for product and plant life cycle information. A big thanks goes out to the many people that have been involved; for the significant effort and strong personal commitment to get us past the finishing line. Now, time to celebrate, and…. then we’ll hit the road again toward the next milestone on the road to digitalization!