Foreword

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This document was prepared by Technical Committee ISO/TC 184, Automation systems and integration, Subcommittee SC 4, Industrial data.

A list of all parts in the ISO 18136 series can be found on the ISO website.

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Introduction

The purpose of this document is to define the high-level concept of a nuclear digital ecosystem (NDE) for information integration and exchange.

ISO/TR 20123, which was published in 2023, deals with the concept of NDE. ISO/TR 20123 documents the state of standardization of information management (IM) of nuclear installations over their life cycle with national surveys. It also identifies the issues and needs to develop new standards, specifically for the nuclear industry.

In order to accomplish the vision described in ISO/TR 20123, a structured strategic roadmap is formulated. New NDE standards are grouped into three major categories: 1) a strong, simple and shared conceptual framework, 2) methodologies of application, and 3) the technological guidelines for practice.

This document is the first one to comprehend all relevant concepts and issues that facilitate a common understanding of the NDE. Based on the NDE framework proposed herein, a set of technical management methodologies, technical information methodologies, and feasibility assessment tools are further specified in the second category. Priority in identifying these methodologies is given to the most influencing business areas, to boost industry implementation. Finally, practical guidelines for implementing the methodologies are further specified in the third category. The guidelines may promote the practical implementation of NDE standards and other existing standards in a collective and harmonized manner.

In summary, this document helps:

identify and share a mutual understanding of the business objectives,
develop a methodology to apply this framework to the specific current contexts of the steps in the life cycles,
use practical guidelines for the practical implementation of the ISO standards.

The framework in this document aims to support the information integration and exchange based on unique managerial requirements of the NDE, to provide guidance for use of high-level standard identifiers for frequently and commonly used components in NDE, and to encompass all related disciplines of a nuclear facility.

This framework refers to and introduces the standards, guidance series and technical documents published by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Additionally, Annex A illustrates the structured representations of the NDE framework. Annex B presents examples of coding systems used in fictional nuclear projects incorporating NDE framework terms. Annex C presents relevant existing standards to help promote the actual implementation of the NDE standard. Annex D specifies a way to describe the context diagram of a system of interest to minimize interoperability issues. The relationship between ISO/TS 18101-1 and this document is defined in Annex E. Annex F describes configuration management and requirement management. Annex G discusses the viability of adopting this agreement to create a digital ecosystem. Finally, Annex H describes NDE structured data and provides several examples of structured data.

1 Scope

This document describes a shared conceptual framework for the nuclear digital ecosystem (NDE). In addition, this framework also serves as a systematic basis for a series of additional standards for management methods and technical guidelines for information integration and exchange, specifically in the nuclear industry.

The framework focuses on the nuclear industry-specifics with management requirements as well as information specifications to facilitate practical benefits from implementing ISO standards. It is viable because the industry scope is narrowed down to the nuclear sector, while the management concerns are expanded to cover the various disciplines throughout the entire life cycle.

The following are within the scope of this document:

definition of the conceptual structure of the nuclear ecosystem with components and relationships in terms of facility type, life cycle (lifetime), and technical management methodology; the scope of this document exclusively addresses ‘all reactor-related facilities’;
definition of the industry sectors involved within NDE, encompassing civil, architectural, mechanical, electrical, I&C, process engineering and ICT;
list of high-level constituents for each component;
instructions to guide the collective use of this document and existing standards to specify information requirements within the NDE for different functional purposes.

The following are outside the scope of this document:

definition of detailed management methodologies or processes related to the standard data exchange;
list of detailed properties and structures of the required information exchange (IE).

2 Normative references

3 Terms, definitions and abbreviated terms

3.1 Terms and definitions

3.2 Abbreviated terms

4 Nuclear digital ecosystem (NDE) framework

4.1 Concept of an NDE

4.2 Depth and breadth of the NDE

5 Fundamental elements of a nuclear digital ecosystem (NDE)

5.1 General

5.2 Nuclear industry

5.3 Business requirements

5.4 Integration

5.5 Information

5.6 ICT and infrastructure

6 Collective use of NDE elements with existing standards

6.1 General

6.2 Identifiers by ISO 18136 series

6.3 Identifiers with other standards

Bibliography