FIATECH AEX Project Version 1.0 XML Schemas

FIATECH AEX Project Publishes Version 1.0 of XML Schemas for Capital Facilities Equipment

Austin, TX, USA. July 26, 2004.

The FIATECH AEX (Automating Equipment Information Exchange) Project released Version 1.0 of its XML schemas for capital facilities equipment and associated documentation today. The XML schemas and documentation are available for anyone to use at no charge from the FIATECH web site (www.fiatech.org).

This effort is the result of a joint industry effort involving over 25 organizations, including:

Sponsor organizations: Bechtel, Citadon, DuPont Engineering, ePlantData, Impress, Intergraph, National Institute of Standards and Technology, S&B Engineering, and the Smithsonian Institution
Participating companies: Applied Flow Technology, Autodesk, AVEVA, Bentley, BigMachines, Burns & Roe, Chempump, Flowserve, Goulds, Jacobs Engineering, Intelliquip and Sundyne
Collaborating industry groups: American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), American Petroleum Institute (API), Design Institute for Physical Properties (DIPPR), Hydraulic Institute, Process Industry Practices (PIP) and PlantSTEP.

Extensible Markup Language (XML) is an Internet standard published by the World Wide Web Consortium (www.w3c.org) that enables information to be intelligently exchanged among software systems. FIATECH launched the AEX Project in May 2002 with the goal of achieving practical industry software interoperability for facilities equipment information. The economic benefits to the capital facilities industry of achieving practical, widespread software interoperability are conservatively estimated by FIATECH and others to be worth many millions of dollars annually.

The XML schemas for facilities equipment, which include both project and technical information, are designed to be used to support multi-party collaboration work processes for the entire life cycle, including design, procurement, delivery, installation, operations and maintenance of facility equipment.

The published XML schemas for facilities equipment include the following:

Extensive core schema architecture to support engineering and technical information, including change tracking, units of measure, objects, context (people, organizations, locations), projects, documents, and more.
Basic equipment information to support over 300 equipment types that may be used for equipment lists
Detailed equipment information for centrifugal pumps and shell and tube heat exchangers that may be used for equipment datasheets based on industry standards such as those available from PIP and API
Material properties for both construction materials and process fluids, supporting over 280 properties

"This public release completes a major milestone for the AEX project. After extensive industry quality reviews and testing, the schemas are sufficiently mature and robust for developers to begin commercial software implementations of XML data exchange interfaces," says Tom Teague, AEX project technical lead, President of ePlantData, Inc. "AEX Project participants are working together now to build the initial software implementations using the Release 1.0 XML schemas. The AEX project will use these software implementations to demonstrate multi-system data exchange and continue to extend the schemas to support detailed information for additional equipment types, for example, compressors, fans, tanks and valves.

DuPont is involved with FIATECH and the AEX Project in particular because we believe it is time to move beyond talking about problems and take action," explains James B. Porter, Jr., Vice President, DuPont Engineering and Operations. "The AEX Project, with the release of these schemas, has responded to an industry-wide challenge regarding standards and interoperability, providing the means whereby owners like DuPont can work with contractors and technology developers to 'find a problem and fix it.' We are extremely pleased with the results of this work. We particularly applaud the agreement among the software developers on the team to implement the schemas in their products. We will continue to work with the AEX team to ensure successful implementation."

"With the public release of these schemas, we have delivered on our promise to help accelerate the integration and automation of the Construction and Buildings industry," says Ric Jackson, Director, FIATECH. "The AEX project team identified a problem in information interchange that was critically important to the project participants, and worked with other industry and standards organizations to coordinate an industry-wide approach to solving it. These schemas and the guidelines that the AEX Team produced are a major step in accelerating the full integration of software tools in the Construction and Buildings industry. Our plan now is to build on this success and continue to drive toward a full solution which this industry so desperately needs."

Technical Contacts

If you have specific questions on the AEX Project, or its XML schemas for facilities equipment, please contact the AEX Project Manager, Mark Palmer, Project Manager, National Institute of Standards and Technology at 301-975-5858 or the Project Technical Lead, Tom Teague, President, ePlantData, Inc. at 713-728-9140.

FIATECH Contact

Ric Jackson
Director
FIATECH
Tel: +1 512-232-9600
Email: rjackson@fiatech.org

[Source: http://www.fiatech.org/projects/idim/ver1pr.htm]

Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See details in the news story "FIATECH AEX Project Publishes XML Schemas for Construction and Buildings Industry." See also AEX and Capital Facilities.

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This effort is the result of a joint industry effort involving over 25 organizations, including: Sponsor organizations: Bechtel, Citadon, DuPont Engineering, ePlantData, Impress, Intergraph, National Institute of Standards and Technology, S&B Engineering, and the Smithsonian Institution Participating companies: Applied Flow Technology, Autodesk, AVEVA, Bentley, BigMachines, Burns & Roe, Chempump, Flowserve, Goulds, Jacobs Engineering, Intelliquip and Sundyne Collaborating industry groups: American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), American Petroleum Institute (API), Design Institute for Physical Properties (DIPPR), Hydraulic Institute, Process Industry Practices (PIP) and PlantSTEP. Extensible Markup Language (XML) is an Internet standard published by the World Wide Web Consortium (www.w3c.org) that enables information to be intelligently exchanged among software systems. FIATECH launched the AEX Project in May 2002 with the goal of achieving practical industry software interoperability for facilities equipment information. The economic benefits to the capital facilities industry of achieving practical, widespread software interoperability are conservatively estimated by FIATECH and others to be worth many millions of dollars annually. The XML schemas for facilities equipment, which include both project and technical information, are designed to be used to support multi-party collaboration work processes for the entire life cycle, including design, procurement, delivery, installation, operations and maintenance of facility equipment. The published XML schemas for facilities equipment include the following: Extensive core schema architecture to support engineering and technical information, including change tracking, units of measure, objects, context (people, organizations, locations), projects, documents, and more. Basic equipment information to support over 300 equipment types that may be used for equipment lists Detailed equipment information for centrifugal pumps and shell and tube heat exchangers that may be used for equipment datasheets based on industry standards such as those available from PIP and API Material properties for both construction materials and process fluids, supporting over 280 properties "This public release completes a major milestone for the AEX project. After extensive industry quality reviews and testing, the schemas are sufficiently mature and robust for developers to begin commercial software implementations of XML data exchange interfaces," says Tom Teague, AEX project technical lead, President of ePlantData, Inc. "AEX Project participants are working together now to build the initial software implementations using the Release 1.0 XML schemas. The AEX project will use these software implementations to demonstrate multi-system data exchange and continue to extend the schemas to support detailed information for additional equipment types, for example, compressors, fans, tanks and valves. DuPont is involved with FIATECH and the AEX Project in particular because we believe it is time to move beyond talking about problems and take action," explains James B. Porter, Jr., Vice President, DuPont Engineering and Operations. "The AEX Project, with the release of these schemas, has responded to an industry-wide challenge regarding standards and interoperability, providing the means whereby owners like DuPont can work with contractors and technology developers to 'find a problem and fix it.' We are extremely pleased with the results of this work. We particularly applaud the agreement among the software developers on the team to implement the schemas in their products. We will continue to work with the AEX team to ensure successful implementation." "With the public release of these schemas, we have delivered on our promise to help accelerate the integration and automation of the Construction and Buildings industry," says Ric Jackson, Director, FIATECH. "The AEX project team identified a problem in information interchange that was critically important to the project participants, and worked with other industry and standards organizations to coordinate an industry-wide approach to solving it. These schemas and the guidelines that the AEX Team produced are a major step in accelerating the full integration of software tools in the Construction and Buildings industry. Our plan now is to build on this success and continue to drive toward a full solution which this industry so desperately needs." Technical Contacts If you have specific questions on the AEX Project, or its XML schemas for facilities equipment, please contact the AEX Project Manager, Mark Palmer, Project Manager, National Institute of Standards and Technology at 301-975-5858 or the Project Technical Lead, Tom Teague, President, ePlantData, Inc. at 713-728-9140. FIATECH Contact Ric Jackson Director FIATECH Tel: +1 512-232-9600 Email: rjackson@fiatech.org [Source: http://www.fiatech.org/projects/idim/ver1pr.htm] Prepared by Robin Cover for The XML Cover Pages archive. See details in the news story "FIATECH AEX Project Publishes XML Schemas for Construction and Buildings Industry." See also AEX and Capital Facilities.