CFIHOS Purpose

  

            

    

   

CFIHOS (Capital Facilities Information HandOver Specification) for process industries  

The Capital Facilities Information Handover Specification (CFIHOS) sets out to standardize the specification of information handover requirements for a project for operators, contractors and equipment manufacturers and suppliers. The target user groups are the process industries, including the oil and gas, chemicals and nuclear sectors.

The CFIHOS project has evolved based on Shell’s internal standard, the Engineering Information Specification; which has been in use since 2004 to specify information requirements from EPC contractors and equipment suppliers to enable population of IT systems used to support operations, maintenance and Brownfield engineering. In 2012 USPI agreed to adopt the Information Specification and use it as a basis for the creation of an industry standard. A CFIHOS working team was created which set out to create the following deliverables as part of the standard:

1.     A technical specification document: Requirements, rules and principles for information handover

2.     A dictionary (Reference Data Library): Consistent naming equipment & documents, acc. ISO stds

3.     A Data Model: For structuring data and documents about assets

4.     A process & guidance document: Outlining implementation steps, do’s & don’ts

5.     A set of requirements for implementation software: Outlining the functional requirements for handover systems

The CFIHOS project published the first version of the standard in 2014 and has recently completed development phase 3; and has transitioned into the maintenance phase for the core components. 

The CFIHOS maintenance phase 1 has now started in which the CFIHOS standard is maintained and enriched from actual implementation projects from the project partners.

The standard is now under implementation in industry and undergoing a number of alignment work-streams with the CFIHOS participants, including other owner operators, who have joined the project.  The standard is also being enriched with any missing elements as found during implementation and as it matures, it will likely be proposed as ISO 15926-10X standard under TC 184/SC 4/WG 3. The objective of the current work-streams is to mature the standard to the extent that it provides a common language for handover requirements for the process industries and meets the requirements in terms of completeness for all the CFIHOS members. 

Setting an industry standard for this specification has several advantages for each of the major stakeholders: 

Owner Operators - an industry recognized standard would reduce the effort required to specify and communicate the information requirements to the supply chain leading to lower costs. It will also become more advantageous to move from company standards with high cost of maintenance to international ISO standards. Also the cost of mapping the handover information to the current systems of operation, engineering and maintenance will be reduced.

Contractors - a consistent approach to information handover requirements from Owner Operators would allow Contractors to integrate the information requirements into their corporate business processes and systems resulting in more efficient delivery and improved quality of the information. Currently Contractors are issued different requirements for each project or are expected to propose what should be delivered and how.

Equipment Suppliers - similarly to Contractors, a standard definition of information requirements would provide suppliers with a consistent view of requirements enabling the information to be generated once and reused. 

Software Vendors - a clear definition of the core information requirements would provide clarity in the functionality needed by the industry in the tools that the develop.