Hello Gang, Happy New Millennium!

This standard is titled "Batch Control Models and Terminolology". A lot of customers require, and a lot of vendors declare compliance with this
standard. After reading it:
A. I couldn't find "compliance" requirements.
B. From its narrative text, I find it not being a standard of the "comply with" kind, more like an introduction to a standard to follow (88.02 maybe?)

Your opinion / flames ?

BTW - any other parts published ?

Meir C. Saggie Chief Engineer
AFCON Control and Automation Ltd., P.O.BOX 3120 Petach Tikva, Israel, 49130

T: +972-3-9392404 F: +972-3-9244249 E: <[email protected]>
W: http://www.afcon-inc.com

 

Right, it's not a "compliance" document. Like the title says, it's models and terminology. People (vendors) talk about systems being S88 "aware", but "compliance" would be a bit of a stretch.

 

The S88.01 Standard is indeed unlike many other standards. In fact it calls itself a Guideline, and compliance is not, as you said, really applicable. Nonetheless, a lot of vendor proclaim it when they really mean that they just use some of the terminology and concepts. Look carefully
at vendors statements and you should find that they do not use the word compliant. Typically they say "The S88 standard is used throughout our
product" or something similar. The standard itself is about stating requirements, not solutions, and no one supplies or could supply shrink wrapped S88. So when you consider applying S88, it starts with understanding the issues
of batch, which the standard (and supporting books, training courses etc) do a good job of. S88.01 should be applied before any product vendors become involved.
S88.02 (Part 2, Data Structures and Guidelines for Languages) will be more definitive, and compliance will be appropriate to a greater extent. The draft standard S95 Part 1 (Enterprise - Control System Integration Part 1: Models and Terminology) is another example of a non "comply with"
standard.

Regards
Francis Lovering
ControlDraw Ltd
http://www.controldraw.co.uk

 

S88.01 is not and has never been a compliance standard. It is precisely what it says: a models and terminology standard. Having said that, there is no reason that a user can't ask a vendor or systems integrator to be consistent with and to apply the concepts that are defined in the standard.

A vendor who says that they are compliant with this standard is just blowing smoke. The standard contains no compliance statements. The
preferred term is 's88 Aware.'

Part 2 is very near to completion. However, it deals with data structures and guidelines for languages.

Tom Fisher
The Lubrizol Corporation