P&ID and PFD in the Document Control Flow

"Any change in the "PID" impacts your document control process" was the first mention I heard about the P&ID. From the information manager's side of the box, it could have been either a Plan Identifier or a Project Initiation Document, but obviously both were out of scope. Trying to sort this out, I eventually found a few useful resources explaining what a Piping & Instrumentation Diagram was and what it was used for.

To understand the links between the P&ID and his twin, the Process Flow Diagram (PFD) :

• A detailed presentation from the engineer point of view, here, another about the main differences between P&ID and PFD, here


• Multilingual (European) pages about P&IDs : this page lists the Oil & Gas instrument abbreviations, and this one provides an overview of the P&ID design and how to read it (tag numbers, loop identification, ...). 


• See here the drawing symbols for P&ID, Isometric drawings and piping arrangement


• To translate and understand the basic designs I usually refer to the Wikipedia pages, in English or french, or to universities websites such as the ETS canadian website.

Document Control processes, P&ID standards and software specifications

• This presentation of a P&ID also introduces to basic line and instrument symbols


• Useful checklists for P&IDs review and engineering packages review, here.

Compliance and control sheets : ISA and ISO standards :

ISA series

• ANSI/ISA-5.1-2009 : Identification, Symbols and instrumentation


• ISA-5.2-1976 (R1992) : Binary Logic Diagrams for Process Operations


• ISA-5.3-1983 : Graphic Symbols for Distributed Control / Shared Display Instrumentation, Logic and Computer Systems


• ANSI/ISA-5.4:1991 : Instrument Loop Diagrams


• ISA-5.5:1995 : Graphic Symbols for Process Displays


• Standard : ANSI/ISA-5.06.01-2007 : Functional Requirements documentation for Control Software Application

ISA data sheets :

• ISA-20.00.03-2001 : Specification Forms for Process, Measurement and Control Instruments, Part 3, Form Requirements and Development Guidelines


• ISA-TR20.00.01-2007 : Specification Forms for Process Measurement and Control Instruments, Part 1, General considerations

Former data sheets and the previous ISA standard (ISA-S20:1981 : Specification Forms for Process Measurement and Control Instruments, Primary Elements, and Control Valves)

Associated ISO series

• ISO 14617-1:2005(R2010) : Graphical symbols for diagrams -- Part 1: General information and indexes


• ISO 14617-1:2005 : Part 2-Part 17


• And associated standards ICS 01.080.30

Management of process hazard :

• OSHA : chemicals


• API RP 750 : petroleum, offshore facilities

Former instrumentation standard if you deal with the archives :

• SAMA

Document control software :

By designing links between the P&ID, the PFD and the Master Document Register inputs in the Enterprise Content Management System, you may secure your document control process and tame the changes in revision.
Research : Thomas Heer. Controlling Developement Processes. A Windows Workflow Foundation based framework for dynamic workflows and a testing review for .NET applications