Introduction

In this post I will try to explain why, in the mid nineties, the concept of FunctionalPhysicalObject was invented and why we should get rid of it (along with its strange partner MaterializedPhysicalObject).

Discussion

Let's go 30 years back in time, to the mid nineties, when the process industries started to be interested in data sharing other than by paper documents, in particular between an EPC contractor and the applicable Plant Owner/Operator.

Both sides had gone through a two decades-long period of internal computerization, away from pencil and paper, and away from the mainframe to workstations and, a bit later, PCs.

For the O/Os the focus of their IT-endeavours was, obviously, on their Operations and Maintenance activities. For a new or revamped plant their data and documents arrived from the EPC contractor. Documents came in a shipping container and a sizable team of O/O engineers and other experts at the jobsite ploughed through that mountain and created order into it. For them that was, and still is mostentimes, the "functional location" side, as opposed to the real-world side of plant items in the field. It got the same tag number as shown on the P&ID.

So, when the O/Os wanted to put on record that a actual equipment item had been installed, the natural object in their computer systems was that "functional location" object, and because it was under their control and residing on their site, to them it was "actual" as opposed to the stuff they got from the EPC contractor.

It were the O/O-representatives in the ISO 15926 modeling activity who called, back in 1996, that "functional" side of the information spectrum FunctionalPhysicalObject, and the kickable opposite MaterializedPhysicalObject.

The birth of CFIHOS

A document was created by various parties, in which attempts were made to come to some form of agreements with respect to formats of documents and data for handing over from EPC contractor to plant owner/operator. The Dutch consortium USPI has been instrumental in organizing what is now CFIHOS (Capital Facilities Information HandOver Specification). In the context of above story that turned out to be a page turner, because CFIHOS created a data model in which the most important item is the TAG, and the EQUIPMENT as its opposite.

At last the FunctionalPhysicalObject of ISO 15926-2 had a home. Both the EPC contractor and the O/O speak about one and the same object: the TAG.
The fact that a temporal part of an Asset has been installed and commissioned for the implementation of a temporal part of a Tag is put on record by relating the two temporal parts with an Implementation relationship. At any time that temporal part of the Asset is the placeholder of operational information as shown in the PLM excerpt below:

No longer was it justified to maintain the myth of an "actual FunctionalPhysicalObject", it simply is the NonActual (Inanimate)PhysicalObject [43], that is also represented on the P&ID, of which a temporal part [46] is implemented by the Actual (Inanimate)PhysicalObject [84] that is a temporal part of the applicable Asset [76].

That is why I propose to deprecate FunctionalPhysicalObject and MaterializedPhysicalObject in Part 2 of ISO 15926.
Please let me know whether you agree or disagree.