We Are In This Together – Implementing ISO 15926
Last week on Monday and Tuesday something very ground breaking happened. Fiatech held a Technology Vendor Workshop in Houston and invited all the members that were technology providers to have a round table discussion on how we were going to support ISO 15926. Why is this ground breaking? Well the discussion was focused on how we were going to work together. Yes, that’s right, technology competitors coming together to address the needs of the industry. Companies participating in the first meeting were: Adobe, Aspentech, AVEVA, Bentley, COADE, Dassault Systems, Intergraph, Innotec, Metegrity, Noumenon, NRX and Oracle.
This meeting provided a forum in which we could come and freely speak our ideas, opinions, and concerns as it relates to delivering technology to support ISO 15926. We had support in the room from Onno Papp – Fluor (ADI Leadership), Robin Benjamins – Bechtel (IDS/ADI Facilitator) and Magne Valen-Sendstad – (POSC Caesar/IDS Leadership) as well as Ric Jackson, Nicole Testa and Ed Chase from Fiatech.
The major topic of discussions was compliance. Just the use of the word “compliance” caused several discussions, but essentially it means to what level you meet the requirements of ISO 15926. To give you an idea of where most of us are today, we are either not on the scale or have met the first criteria. This is primarily because we have not started to implement technology at this point, hence the meeting and the discussions. An interesting point was brought up during the technology vendor meeting of not only how compliant we were with the technology, but how compliant our customers were as well.
The second major topic of discussion was centered on how we are going to address the technology issues around ISO 15926 and work together. Several projects or expressions of interest were indentified during the meeting and we were able to come to an agreement on which companies were interested in each topic and therefore would possibly work together to address it.
It was long two days, but very much worth our time and investment. Real progress is being made towards this effort and solving many of the issues the industry faces. This meeting was followed by an EPC/OO meeting were they were able to identify their own projects and expression of interest. In talking with Ed Chase, he told me that the EPC/OO meeting was just as successful as the technology vendors. He was able to share some quotes that come from the meeting.
"I got it! I now really understand ISO 15926, and was even willing to place my name against several projects. In the past I was always asking myself 'How in the hell do I tell my people what ISO 15926 means?' Now I can tell them."
“I want data to be independent of applications, and now we have that vehicle. We have five different operating applications across the company and currently have a project to normalize/standardize them, and I can report back that ISO 15926 can help us do that."
"I'm still trying to convince many of my managers to stop being silozied and to start looking at horizontal work processes. These workshops will help me make that argument."
I started this entry as “we are in this together” and I think for one of the first times we have ever seen anything like this in the industry. If you would have told me when I started in this industry that one day technology vendors and EPC/OO would come together and work towards a common goal, I would have laughed. It will take all parties involved in all phases of the project to make this a huge success. Meetings and organizations like these are a positive step in the right direction.
More information and future events can be found at the Fiatech homepage.
Have fun,
Jonathan