Process Automation: P&ID: A roadmap for the rest of the

trip
December 2009

Process Automation

P&ID: A roadmap for the rest of the trip

An ISA standard on the horizon for "faster, better, cheaper" P&IDs
Fast Forward
P&ID development should be a joint venture between process, piping/mechanical, and I&C staff.
The ISA5.7 Committee is working to harmonize the PIP document with ANSI/ISA-5.1.
By Thomas McAvinew

The P&ID is the first design drawing where equipment is identified with a tag, a combination of unique
letters followed by a number. For instrumentation, this tag number would be per ANSI/ISA 5.1-2009,
Instrumentation Symbols and Identification.
The old adage, "A picture is worth a thousand words," is familiar worldwide, and in the process industries,
the design document commonly know as the Piping and Instrumentation Diagram (P&ID) is such a
picture.

This graphical representation depicts piping and mechanical equipment, including associated
instrumentation hardware and control functions for a given process system or sub-system. This
document, also known as an Engineering Flow Diagram, Mechanical Flow Diagram, or more recently,
Process and Control Diagram, is intended to be a multi-discipline tool for subsequent detailed design.
Long gone are the days of being able to literally build a facility from the P&ID, or its historic predecessor
the Flow Plan or Diagram, with its relatively simplistic pneumatic control system. From the P&ID, for

example, pipe, equipment, motor, and instrument lists are generated that result in diagrams with everincreasing levels of detail that finally comprise the construction package that goes to the general
contractor and the subcontractors.
But how does this keystone document, this roadmap for the design team, get developed? Well, it has
been said there are two things you do not want to watch being made: laws and sausage; and in some
ways, P&IDs could be added to the list.
There are as many styles of P&IDs as there are engineering and operating firms. Levels of detail and
how much to show on a typical 22" x 34" sheet are ongoing issues. Instrumentation, in particular, is
variously represented from simplified depictions to detailed ones. And as if those issues were not
enough, there is the ever-present pressure to develop the perfect P&ID.
Design freeze? You must be joking. I recall a project where a project manager came back from lunch to
find a process engineer marking up a P&ID that had already been signed off for issue to the client. The
project manager cupped his hands and bellowed, "Drop the red pencil! Back away slowly!"
There are certainly subjective and objective issues here. The subjective ones are within the realm of
responsibility of the engineering and project managers, but one would think that somewhere there was a
standard for developing and checking P&IDs. Many practitioners in the field of instrumentation, controls,
and automation have often wondered why ISA did not have a standard for this.

Why a standard?
While in a typical operating company or engineering firm P&IDs are the primary responsibility of the
process engineering department with the task of drawing or CAD drawing the work of the
piping/mechanical folks, this work is too often done in a bit of a vacuum. Sure, I&C staff get to participate
in the review and revision process, but it is usually late in the P&ID development process, requiring the
use of many red pencils.
Of course, it would not be a bad idea to get us involved sooner, but would it not also be better if some of
this was done right the first time? In other words, P&ID development should be a joint venture between
the process, piping/mechanical, and I&C staff.
Individual firms may have an in-house standard for P&IDs, but the development of this key diagram form
is most likely an acquired skill. That is, the rules are largely unwritten, and there is typically no perceived
need to codify this skill set, which is simply passed on from generation to generation. This may work fine
within an individual company as long as staff longevity exists-something which is on the decline-but,
particularly among engineering firms, consistency is a desirable goal. Enter Process Industries Practices
(PIP) of the Construction Industries Institute, operating out of the University of Texas at Austin. In
November 1998, this industry association first issued PIP PIC001, Piping and Instrumentation Diagram
Documentation Criteria. Most recently revised in April 2008, this criteria's purpose was to provide the

means of minimizing the costs to process industry facilities of providing consistent and comprehensive
documentation including the legal requirements of OSHA regulations.
About that time, the ISA Standards and Practices Board approved the formation of a committee, ISA5.7,
to develop a P&ID standard, and after several attempts to focus on content, the PIP document was found
to exist. So rather than reinvent the wheel, the committee contacted PIP, and after considerable
discussion over a couple of years to resolve legal/copyright issues, an agreement was reached for ISA to
use the PIP as the basis for the ISA standard.
This was a win-win agreement. PIP is not an ANSI-approved standards-writing organization, and this was
a way for them to expand the influence of their base document beyond their membership, while for ISA it
had the obvious benefit of providing a tremendous jump start.

A true P&ID standard

The groundwork has now been laid for a true P&ID standard from ISA, as compared with the newly
revised ANSI/ISA-5.1-2009, Instrumentation Symbols and Identification. This standard has long been
referred to as a P&ID standard by many practitioners simply because its most common use has been on
P&IDs. This is probably due to the fact that when first published in 1949 as a 14-page Recommended
Practice (RP5.1), it was titled, Instrumentation Flow Plan Symbols.
In subsequent revisions, however, the title changed, and the scope and purpose statements indicated
the standard was applicable to all forms of documentation-something that has been specifically
emphasized in the new 126-page revision. That emphasis, plus the 25-year-old aim of the late ISA5.1
Chair Ray Mulley, the current Chair Jim Carew, and the committee to make ANSI/ISA-5.1 the central
repository of symbols, should make the main focus of this standard obvious.
There may well be some questioning as to why ISA would want to get involved in areas of other
disciplines, but the interrelationship of I&C, piping, mechanical, and process content on P&IDs should be
considered, and as has been alluded to previously, there are efficiencies to be gained by reducing
rework early in the development process. If better cooperation and the realization of achieving the goal of
developing P&IDs "faster, better, cheaper" can be accomplished by this P&ID standard, then there
should be no question.
Currently with Don Frey as chair, the ISA5.7 Committee is moving forward with the immediate task to
harmonize the PIP document with the newly approved ANSI/ISA-5.1. It is anticipated that the standard will
be issued in 2010.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Thomas C. McAvinew, PE (tom.mcavinew@jacobs.com) is a senior control systems engineer with

Jacobs Engineering in Golden, Colo. He is a Life Senior member of ISA and is the Past VP of the
Standards and Practices Department. He also co-authored the ISA published book, Control Systems

Documentation, 2nd Edition, with the late Raymond Mulley.

What information goes on a P&ID?

An agreement must be reached regarding what instrumentation information is to be included on a Piping
and Instrumentation Diagram (P&ID). Since the document is a shopping list of equipment, piping, and
instrumentation, it could be argued that everything must be included. However, work schedules and
drawing clutter have some influence on the decision. Not all control schemes can be developed before
the document is needed for other purposes; not all instrumentation details need to be shown on a P&ID.
There are other drawing types for details. There is such a thing as information overload; the line must be
drawn somewhere.
Obviously, space and locations must be reserved for piping and equipment, so all primary and final
elements must be shown. The same applies to valves, sample points, PSVs, level glasses, TIs, PIs, flow
elements, and so on. If the instrumentation is directly connected to the process, it should be shown.
Such things as valve sizes, set points, and failure positions need not be shown. They appear elsewhere,
and it is unwise to place them where they possibly will not be revised at a later date. This type of
information appears more logically on instrument data sheets.
Away from contact with the process is a controversial area. There are those who argue that only the
basic loop should be shown-nothing more. On the other side are the larger companies that tend to
perform their instrument design on the engineering flow sheet. Where is the line drawn?
The purpose of the P&ID is to depict the process in detail and to give some idea as to its control. Not all
instrument details are shown-there are just too many. The basis already established is all the
instrumentation connected to the process and that information necessary to the operator are shown in
detail, but not the information that appears more readily elsewhere. Information necessary to the
operator includes recording, indicating, controlling, alarming, and the availability of push buttons; it does
not necessarily include square root extraction, for example.
Where does the information appear if it is not included on the P&ID? The answer is that it is on other
documents: loop diagrams, logic diagrams, electrical control diagrams, ladder diagrams-whichever is
most appropriate. Each company has to establish its own clearly delineated standards for
documentation.

Categories of instrumentation
The authors' preference for P&IDs can be explained as follows. Basically, three major categories of
instrumentation appear on the P&ID: analog-type controls, discrete controls, and the operator interface.
Analog-type controls are those that deal with continuously controlled variables; discrete controls are

those that are involved with logic. The operator interface involves everything the operator sees or
touches in the supervision of the process. The P&ID should show everything the operator will see or
touch-every indicator, recorder, controller, alarm, and push button that is connected with the process.
The P&ID is the major source of the information about the process, so the operator must be able to see
what will be available.
Discrete controls are probably the most complicated. Being complicated, they are difficult to depict, so
they tend to be neglected. Many companies have attempted to invent a simplified logic to use on P&IDs,
generally to no avail. The best approach to discrete logic is to show all the inputs and outputs to and
from a rectangle that is identified as a logic block and then reference the drawing where the logic will be
developed. This approach has the benefit of allowing development to proceed at a later time, yet giving
the essential information for development of the engineering flow sheet-the inputs and outputs.
Analog-type controls are the most difficult to deal with because they seem to be the easiest to
understand. The controversy concerning how much instrumentation should be included on a P&ID really
revolves around how much analog-type instrumentation is to be shown, if the reader accepts the authors'
treatment of discrete logic. The roots of the controversy lie not so much in differences of opinion as in
different company operating procedures.