Application driven approach for the development of a data model standard for process plant operation

This article attempts to address an application driven approach to the tech nical development of an ISO preliminary work item - data model standard for process plant operation and maintenance. The target is to develop a high q uality data model, which can be used to build a distributed database for pr ocess plant operation support systems. It is crucial that the data model to be defined in an appropriate format so that the database built on top of i t can be fast and flexible enough to support multiple real time application s. The application driven approach analyzes the entire application domain i ncluding operational activities, their performers, the relationship between them and the data shared. This article describes this approach and its app lication in the technical development of the work item. (C) 2000 Elsevier S cience Ltd. All rights reserved.