Dear USPI members and interested parties
Hereby our annual update on the activities and plans of USPI. It starts with a summary of data standardization developments in the process industries and in
USPI. It subsequently moves on to our plans for the coming period, in which more will be published on our website in due course.
Developments in process industries & USPI
2024 has been a year of turmoil. Many companies in the industry are going through reorganisations and are continuing to globalise and align their internal working processes. Cost pressure, shifting economic powers, aging workforce and new technologies to improve performance are themes that drive the changes.
The cost pressures in the industry are a remaining threat and impacting the availability of resources. There is a growing understanding that Cognitive Digital Twins and Artificial Intelligence will provide capabilities to improve safety, planning, quality and efficiency in operations and projects, and will help to meet customers' expectations. A classical dilemma: short term quick wins versus long term, competitive wins. Without good quality data or without data interoperability, the cost to run Twins and AI implementations become high and often the initiatives fail to succeed.
The number of standardisation bodies and initiatives is high. Many of the same companies participate in multiple of them. This gives USPI the responsibility to carefully pick our own initiatives and to collaborate with other initiatives to develop a set of standards that are unique and complement each other. USPI has Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with multiple standardisation bodies where we work to align the standards and to create maximum return on investment.
USPI understands that a set of specifications is just the beginning of standardisation. The associated transformation of systems (people, process, data) requires guidance on how to apply these standards to help the industry to reap the benefits as quickly as and as good as possible. This is why we have delivered an implementation guide for the FL3DMS specification and started a knowledge sharing initiative for Information Management in Large Capital Facilities (IM-LCF).
The aforementioned cost pressures led to some members ending their USPI membership. We are sad to see them leave and wish them the best. On the other hand, we are also welcoming new members. Joint effort through participating in USPI’s initiatives is seen by our members to manage resources effectively as opposed to develop internal data standards by themselves.
For all the company representatives, please continue to work with your management to highlight the importance of the standardization work in general. If there is anything you need help with, please contact USPI (via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) to see how we can help.
USPI is continuing to serve the process industries with relevant new standards related to 3D Models and Tagging requirements, and activities such as Safaris and the convenorship of ISO 15926. Also, we keep the focus on integrating with and supporting our sister organizations' standards, of which a few are DEXPI, IOGP, CII, NORSOK and BuildingSmart.
Recent USPI Deliverables
A key recent deliverable of the Facilities Lifecycle 3D Model Standard (FL3DMS) project is a "3D Model Lifecycle Guide”, which helps owner operators understand the activities and decisions needed to specify and manage 3D Models in Projects and Asset such as to derive full value from them from cradle to grave. You can download the guide free of charge here. It is easy to read and does not require any specialist 3D Modelling knowledge. If you find it useful, please distribute it within your network.
The other main delivery for FL3DMS is release 1.2 of the Standard. You can find this standard and the previous releases here. More information on FL3DMS release 1.2 can be found here. In the face-2-face meeting in June '24, a prioritisation of topics has led to a roadmap for subsequent Standard releases. If you want to join this important standard, please contact Vincent Grondman (via This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).
Under convenorship of Paul van Exel in 2024, ISO TC 184/SC 4/WG 3 has published ISO.TS 15926-4 ed3 RDL, which is the standard for process industries. The rules for the RDL are captured in ISO 15926-6 ed1, which has been approved for publication in January 2025.
Terms of reference have been agreed with ISO SMART for a pilot on using “dereferenceable URIs”, which will be executed in 2025. This feature is required under ISO for development and maintenance of ISO 15926-4, published as a database as per the W3C principles.
The ISO/DIS 18136-1 Nuclear Digital Ecosystem Framework standard has been approved for publication early 2025.
We also held several popular Safaris to create awareness about other relevant standards:
1. Greenhouse Gas Data Supporting Energy Transition – Ian Cornwell
2. Information Management in Large Capital Facilities – Leo van Ruijven en Paul van Exel
3. Construction using Advance Work Packaging – with Construction Industry Institute, by Eric Dechoz and Mikitaka Hayashi during the MB meeting
4. ISO19008 Standard Cost Coding System with Andree van der Veen, Ferry Zollner and T David McEvoy during the MB meeting
Planned deliverables for the coming period
FL3DMS
The FL3DMS project is set to introduce version 1.3 of the standard later in the year. This version will include:
1. Implementation Guide, including best practices for contracting, 3D model review and handover from project to operations.
2. 3D Model Data Model, including the requirements for identification of commissioning systems
3. Equipment/skid vendor requirements for 3D model representation
4. As-building Requirement
5. Corrosion Management Requirements
6. Construction Planning data Requirements.
We are aiming to deliver a white paper on industry options for catalogue management.
Tagging
The tagging project will deliver an updated Terms of Reference (TOR). The initial release of the Tagging Philosophy will have the following elements:
· Implementation Guide
· Use cases
· Tag decomposition
· Standards landscape
The Implementation Guide will cover minimum requirements on what and when to tag. The project execution is through biweekly meetings/workshops. Active participation is needed from committed companies.
ISO 15926 / ISO TC 184/SC 4/WG 3
Under convenorship of Paul van Exel in 2025, ISO TC 184/SC 4/WG 3 ISO.TS 15926-4 ed3 RDL, reference data for process industries. will be updated into ISO 15926-4 ed4 with additional discipline spreadsheets and an improved hierarchy.
The update ISO 15926-4 ed4 has started and will be completed in about 12 months with publication early 2026. In 2026 the ISO/TS 15926-4 ed4 will then be transitioned into ISO 15926-4 rf4 at IS level.
The ISO 15926-2 data model has been reviewed in 2024 by a team of ontology experts. As a result, the data model will be updated into ISO 15926-2 ed2 as ontology base and an ISO/TR 15926-200 will be created to provide practical implementation guidance to users of ISO 15926-2.
Next parts of ISO 18136 Nuclear Digital Ecosystem will be developed for management methods and guidelines. It is considered to combine this with doing an industry project under the EU Horizon program.
IM-LCF
Resulting from the success of the Safari “Lessons learnt from IM in Large Capital Facility (IM-LCF) projects”, in 2024 an IM-LCF project was started to capture this knowledge and deliver a guide for using ISO 15926-11 and other international standards to create a Common Data Environment (CDE) as an integrated database for design, engineering, operation and maintenance.
In 2025 the IM-LCF project will deliver guidance for cleaning supplier data for inclusion in the CDE. In 2026, the IM-LCF project also will deliver a specification of requirements for commercial software to accommodate working with such CDE.
The participants in the project are committed to bringing their company experience and brainstorming how it will fit the commonly agreed guide and specification.
More information about IM-LCF can be found here
Upcoming Safaris
1. Use of 3D in commissioning – Paul Turner, Industrial Commissioning Association
2. Construction Work Management: a different approach of AWP – Saber Belghith, KonnectxD
Watch the USPI website, LinkedIn and your email for hopefully more Safari’s as the year progresses.
Organisation
The USPI Executive Committee (EC) exists of the following members:
- Peter Paul Pruijn who is responsible for finance and the Tagging Requirements Specification,
- Leo van Ruijven who is responsible for education and serves as the ISO 15926 Sponsor,
- Anders Thostrup who is responsible for USPI's Memoranda of Understanding with sister organisations,
- Hugo Belder who is the chair of USPI and responsible for general management.
- It is proposed to the Management Board (MB) of USPI, to include John Leeflang from McDermott for the EPC contracting side.
The operational management team includes Vincent Grondman, who serves as the administrative lead, and is responsible for communication, members admin, planning of meetings, events, IT, and finance. It also counts Paul van Exel, director of standards and convener of ISO 15926, and Martin te Lintelo, director of the FL3DMS standard.
During the last quarter of 2024, we have started engaging members to expand the EC and we hope that in the course of 2025 we can confirm this expansion.
USPI Members Meeting on 24 April 2025
As in previous years, we will hold our annual Members Meeting in 2025 Q2, on April 24th from 13:30-17.00 at the LyondellBasell offices in Rotterdam. Contrary to its name it is in fact an open meeting, meaning that everyone is welcome. More announcements will follow shortly.
Yours sincerely,
Hugo Belder
Chairman USPI