Taking a STEP forward with flair

There is little argument with the premise that improved data integration is good for business, particularly integration which eases its flow and flexible re-use beyond individual businesses and applications, and across business lifecycles from conception to de-commissioning and re-deployment on future projects.

In essence the purpose of STEP, the ISO-10303 Standard for Exchange of Product Model Data, is to standardise on the meanings of data about engineering things. The objective is to remove a major obstacle to this sharing and exchange of information and to complement the general drive towards openness of IT systems and software. In some industries, particularly the aerospace and automotive sectors, STEP is proven technology in general use.

At last year's UK Process Industry IT Strategy Conference, organised by IChemE and PRIMA, several speakers referred to the success of IT in many service and manufacturing industries and contrasted this with the failure of billions of dollars of IT investment over 10 years to deliver such benefits to the process industries. The lack of success was blamed on `failure in the boardroom to grasp the information management agenda.'

These same speakers, directors from the oil, gas and chemical majors, shared their visions of information and knowledge as their key corporate asset to be exploited by making it available to anyone, anywhere in their organisations. Most agree that the key issue is not IT, but Information Management and that a major dimension of this involves soft issues like knowledge, people and business culture.

STEP can be viewed as an important bridge between the technology and the soft issues. STEP is an engineering standard and the data modelling theory may look like science, but the essence of STEP is the meaning of data. Application Protocols (APs), the major parts of STEP, contain libraries of standardised definitions of engineering data. However, these definitions are not `defined' by scientific theory, but are `discovered' by analysis, agreement and iteration between users of the information.

As well as being involved in STEP development and project execution activities described later, Foster Wheeler has been re-developing its own information systems strategy. The principal feature of this strategy is FLAIR, the Foster Wheeler Lifecycle Asset Information aRchitecture (see figure 1) and the core of FLAIR is the principle of data integration by standardisation of meanings.

Although the data integration and standardisation objectives are widely accepted, few people in the process industry would accept STEP as fully proven in the bottom line. However, there is already a threefold drive to create a strategic framework such as FLAIR at this stage:

Firstly, the pace of change in IT continues to be so great that planning future exploitation cannot be left until the potential is fully proven and developed in detail. Secondly, the potential changes are so far reaching in terms of `business re-engineering' possibilities, that the cultural changes needed cannot simply be switched on once STEP becomes a shrink-wrapped solution. Finally, the complexity of the detail is such that fully detailed STEP solutions will not arise from standards development alone, without the iteration provided by early implementation.

STEP Developments in Europe

The key players in European process industry STEP developments have been EPISTLE, POSC/Caesar, PISTEP and SPI-NL (see panel for details). Virtually all the major operators and contractors with significant European operations are members of at least one of these consortia. Foster Wheeler, for example, is an active member of EPISTLE and PISTEP.

PISTEP and SPI-NL, the UK and Dutch industry consortia, are dedicated to providing a forum for co-operation on data exchange in general and STEP in particular. PISTEP published the Process Plant Engineering Activity Model, adopted by most other consortia as a useful block model overview of the whole process industry lifecycle, allowing the problem to be broken down into manageable components and permitting focus on each individually.

SPI-NL has had significant success in attracting the involvement of suppliers, other than software suppliers. One SPI-NL project `SPIN-Off/2' produced the most convincing demonstration to date of the exchange of real process plant engineering data between real applications. The demonstration involved several main engineering contractor applications interacting with their data warehouse, exchanging data two-way with an instrument supplier, and vessel supplier and a piping fabricator, before handing over the data to the client-operators' data warehouse, which was seen interacting with their maintenance application and with the supplier of a replacement for a failed pump.

In Europe, the main focus has been Application Protocol AP221, that part of STEP applicable to Process Plant Schematics and Functional Data. There are several initiatives considering the interfaces between this and other related or overlapping APs, and other developing industry data exchange standards such as Fieldbus. But AP221 represents the core aspect of process plant engineering distinct from other engineering sectors.

Merging models

EPISTLE and POSC/Caesar had both adopted the EPISTLE `Generic Entity Framework' as the basis of their data models, and both were effectively developing separate versions of AP221. The EPISTLE-generated draft version of AP221, with an early version of the class library, was issued to ISO late in 1996 for circulation by ISO amongst member national standards organisations with a view to publication as the `Committee Draft' (CD) version later this year. Whilst there had been some divergence between EPISTLE and POSC/Caesar, both organisations have agreed that a merging of their models and class libraries is both feasible and desirable. A target is to achieve a workable, merged and self-consistent version of the associated AP221 class library during 1997.

However, the events which have given STEP the biggest boost in the European process industries, have been decisions by several significant major projects to adopt STEP data management in their execution.

The complexity of a major multi-platform, multi-completion UK North Sea project currently in its EPC (engineering, procurement and construction) phase, and the organisational complexity of the partnership of operators and contractors undertaking it, were driving forces for this project to use a novel data sharing and exchange approach.

The project is committed to managing all engineering data principally via AP221 and using the POSC/Caesar class libraries as a basis. It is well into implementation of its data repository and an important aspect of the progress to date, has been feedback on the adequacy of the data model and class libraries and on the process of mapping data in existing `legacy' systems into the developing standard model.

Another example is a partnership, including Foster Wheeler Energy (FWEL), that late last year was awarded the lump-sum turnkey EPC phase of a major Middle East LNG plant project. This project is committed to creating the Engineering DataBase as an AP221-compliant STEP Data Warehouse, to be built and used during the EPC phase and to form the basis of data handover of engineering data into the operating phase. Development of the software specification and shortlisting potential suppliers has progressed, in parallel with engineering using proven systems and training of the project team in the implications of STEP AP221. As noted above, FWEL has also made a corporate commitment to data integration via standardised data definitions in its FLAIR framework and the dissemination of this strategy within the company directly supports the project commitment and training.

Another European project which has made a commitment to exploiting STEP from the earliest planning stages is a phased development over several decades to extend the life of an extensive network of gas production platforms, operated by a major EU state gas company.

Also, three Norwegian offshore operators, closely associated with POSC/Caesar have made a commitment to their first implementation of STEP for lifecycle data management on each of three offshore development projects. One has already selected software and is moving into the implementation phase.

As well as these examples, there are several other major process plant operations around Europe already exploiting or planning to exploit STEP APs, either for existing or new projects.

While it is too early to claim bottom-line benefits from any of the STEP implementations above, many of the demonstrators have proven the feasibility of sharing and exchanging information this way. Each of the organisations involved is predicting major benefits; for example, `step changes', `breakthrough' or `paradigm shifts' in performance. There is, however, a need for benchmarking and establishing base case performance now, if benefits of the kind predicted by these organisations are to be demonstrable.

Another optimistic feature in European use of STEP has been the formation of a European Process Industries STEP User Group, which is already proving valuable to its members in the exchange of ideas about implementation and plans to overcome difficulties.

Given the degree of uncertainty in quantifying the predicted benefits, it is significant that many of the organisations involved are making the leap of faith to basing their strategies on the success of data integration based on STEP principles, and that some organisations are translating this faith into commitment on real capital projects. Foster Wheeler has made both commitments; to the corporate strategy in FLAIR; and to delivering benefits on a real major capital project.h

Ian Glendinning is principal engineering systems consultant with Foster Wheeler Energy Ltd, Reading.

{{GLOSSARY OF TERMS

EPISTLE European Process Industry STEP Technical Liaison ExecutiveESPRIT EU/Industry joint funded IT exploitation projectsFLAIR Foster Wheeler Lifecycle Asset Information aRchitecturePIEBASE Process Industries Executive for Business Advantage through Sharing and ExchangePOSC The Petrotechnical Open Software CorporationPOSC/Caesar Joint standardisation project of POSC and Norwegian Caesar Offshore consortium.PRIMA The (UK) Process Industry Manufacturing Advantage consortiumSPI-NL The Netherlands Process Industries Consortium}}