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

ISO families : 82045

Watching my news feeds yesterday I got interested in a post asking for document control ISO standards. James Wood in Document Controllers Forum was kind enough to introduce us to the ISO 82045 family, a cross-industry standard specific for document engineering, intended for document users, with annexes addressing developers as well. Here is a short feedback and a summary of the requirements described on iso.org :

IEC 82045-1:2001 Document management -- Part 1: Principles and methods

This part defines the document concept, which includes CAD files and "all other information entities that need to be managed".

IEC 82045-2:2004 Document management -- Part 2: Metadata elements and information reference model

This part is about data exchange, and provides a set of normalized metadata elements and an XML framework. It includes :

1. A table collecting metadata element identifiers and their language-dependent labels


2. An information reference model based on the EXPRESS XML modelling method, providing an independent framework for data exchange and ease of implementation. This independent framework sustains the metadata elements associated with the implementation
3. An XML DTD based on metadata collection and information framework

The core concepts are : framework interoperability and reusability in the information system for other objects, such as products for instance.

ISO 82045-5:2005 Document management -- Part 5: Application of metadata for the construction and facility management sector

This part specifies elements and methods for sharing and exchanging management data (metadata) for documents, to be used with electronic or paper-based document management systems, but is specific for AEC (Architecture, Engineering and Construction) and FM (Facility Management) sectors.

So if you ever have implemented these standards and have lessons learned, please share !