CII and MIMOSA Join Forces to move Interoperability Forward for Capital Projects

CII and MIMOSA sign Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to use the Open Industrial Interoperability Ecosystem (OIIE) as the interoperability framework for CII best practices.

I’m a believer based upon long experience that standards and interoperability drive industries (and society) forward. Just look, for example, at standard gauge railroad tracks or standard shipping containers or Internet protocols. I should also note that I worked on the development of the OIIE several years ago, but they got to the point where I could not contribute for a while. As I wrote recently, things are coming together in this effort for interoperable data flow from engineering design through construction to operations & maintenance throughout the lifecycle of a large capital project.

Here is the latest, and very important, news.

CII (The Construction Institute) and MIMOSA announce their collaboration to adopt and progress the standards for an open, vendor neutral digital ecosystem supporting data and systems interoperability in capital projects, operations and maintenance enabling digital transformation of the full asset lifecycle. The MOU establishes the basis for a CII/MIMOSA Joint Working Group to develop best practices for standards based interoperability in capital projects leveraging the organizations combined strengths.

It will develop formal OIIE Use Cases for capital projects based on Industry Functional Requirements developed by CII, starting with those associated with Advanced Work Packaging (AWP). These OIIE Use Cases will be validated in the OIIE Oil and Gas Interoperability (OGI) Pilot before they are published and licensed for use on a world-wide royalty free basis. Once the jointly developed OIIE Use Cases are validated in the pilot, CII and MIMOSA intend to submit them to ISO TC 184/WG 6 for inclusion in future parts of ISO 18101.

The OIIE is an outgrowth of collaboration between multiple industry-level Standards Developing Organizations, where MIMOSA plays a key leadership role and has led the workstreams for digitalization and interoperability in support of asset life-cycle management. The OIIE OGI Pilot includes standard use cases for asset intensive industries, currently featuring an example oil and gas industry process unit.

Active collaboration has begun, by sharing the existing OIIE Use Case Architecture and asset lifecycle management OIIE Use Cases previously developed by MIMOSA and validated in the OIIE OGI Pilot. CII has shared the AWP data requirements that are under development by CII.

Next steps will begin to include CII AWP best practices in applicable, OIIE Use Cases for capital projects, including jointly enhancing existing use cases and the joint development of new ones. CII and MIMOSA encourage interested organizations to join and participate in each association to fully support this important industry-led effort.

Organizations that participate have the potential to benefit in many ways including:

  • System of Systems interoperability results in less reliance on expensive, fragile, custom integration between systems, reducing IT costs while increasing agility and sustainability.
  • Education and training to a common set of industry practices and standards, provides a more flexible and efficient digital economy work force, benefitting industry and workers alike with reduced loss of knowledge and expertise.
  • Investment in future proofed, vendor neutral, interoperable data, enables industry to create, capture, manage and reuse digital information, as a strategic asset throughout the entire physical asset lifecycle, deriving significantly more business value from capital projects.
  • Owners identified the opportunity to cut CAPEX spend by 15-20% through better information sharing with improved schedules and productivity due to far less time wasted looking for information, and much more time on tools.

CII, based at The University of Texas at Austin, is a consortium of more than 140 leading owner, engineering- contractor, and supplier firms from both the public and private arenas. These organizations have joined together to enhance the business effectiveness and sustainability of the capital facility life cycle through CII research, related initiatives, and industry alliances.

MIMOSA is a 501 (c) 6 not-for-profit industry trade association dedicated to developing and encouraging the adoption of open, supplier-neutral IT and IM standards enabling physical asset lifecycle management spanning manufacturing, fleet and facilities environments. MIMOSA standards and collaboratively developed specifications enable Digital Twins to be defined and maintained on a supplier-neutral basis, while also using Digital Twins to provide Context for Big Data (IIOT and other sensor-related data) and Analytics.

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