19th International CODATA Conference
Category: Interoperability

A VAMAS Round Robin for testing the use of ISO standards in archiving, exchanging and sharing of Life Cycle Assessment data

Anna Moreno (anna.moreno@casaccia.enea.it) and Flavio Fontana (fontana@casaccia.enea.it)
ENEA, Italy

In order to communicate information without loss or ambiguity it is necessary to use a common information model – to provide a structure for the data items from which the information can be extracted; and a common dictionary – to provide the meaning of the data items and define what they represent.

An information model is a formal specification for the organisation of the information – equivalent to the grammatical rules that determine the order of words in a sentence in a natural language.

The ISO Standards ISO 10303, 13584 and 15926 enable the creation of information models for technical information that are computer-processable and provide a means to exchange data between different computer software applications.  Each computer software application has its own unique internal information structure that cannot be used directly by a different system.  The use of standardised information structures enables information to be stored in a neutral, independent framework that systems can readily convert into their own internal form.

The idea behind the work performed by the CASCADE consortium, financed by the European Commission, can be compared with the “Rosetta” stone that has allowed to translate between different languages when, until that moment, it was impossible for anyone to translate the Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Cascade output will give the capability to transfer information among different computers that until now had no such capability.

The difference between the CASCADE proposal and other commercial solutions is that our methodology is based on a stable ISO standard and that this standard is the bridge to other ISO standards developed in the field of automation by ISO TC 184/SC4. This committee has developed the ISO 10303 (STEP) that is an international standard to address interoperability problems encountered in the exchange of digital product information.  STEP is a suite of standards enabling manufacturing companies to exchange digital representations of engineering and manufacturing data throughout the product life-cycle and this capability is therefore very important for the application of 'Life Cycle Thinking' in design and manufacture.

The use of standard representations for data that are independent of proprietary systems also ensures the long-term stability of data that is important for Life Cycle Inventories.

A Round Robin Test, consisting in the exchange of data for the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) among different organizations using different software and or hardware will be performed within the VAMAS (Versailles Advanced Materials and Standards) framework.