Representative End User Clients
Representative Automation Clients
Representative Software Clients
KEYWORDS: AI-Augmented HAZOP; Process Safety; Industrial AI; Semantic Data Models; Knowledge Graphs; Open Digital Ecosystems; Digital Transformation
Overview
The industrial process industries are entering a new phase of digital transformation in which artificial intelligence (AI), semantic data models, and interoperable digital ecosystems are converging to address longstanding operational and process safety challenges. ARC’s Open Digital Ecosystem (ODE) group is a working group for end users maintained and moderated by ARC. The ODE looks at emerging digital technologies and AI and how they can be deployed in manufacturing to create a truly open ecosystem for all types of data required for operating industrial facilities and plants.
Recently, the ODE hosted a webinar on Accelerating Innovation for AI-Augmented Hazard and Operability Studies (HAZOP) for process safety applications. ODE owner-operators that participated in the webinar included ExxonMobil, Shell, and BP, all of whom joined ARC Advisory Group to outline a collaborative industry initiative to apply AI to HAZOP. The HAZOP working group is part of the ODE and aims to establish best practices, open standards, and interoperable frameworks that can improve HAZOP efficiency while preserving the critical role of human expertise in process safety.
AI-augmented HAZOP is emerging as a practical proving ground for industrial AI. It addresses a high-value, knowledge-intensive safety workflow without removing expert judgment from the process. By combining semantic data models, interoperable digital ecosystems, and governed AI assistance, owner-operators can reduce repetitive preparation work while strengthening the quality and consistency of hazard analysis.
Participants emphasized that AI is not being positioned as a replacement for process safety professionals. The objective instead is to leverage AI to automate repetitive, predictable aspects of HAZOP preparation, reduce time spent collecting and reconciling information, and enable engineering teams to focus on higher-value analysis, brainstorming, and identifying novel hazards. The initiative also serves a broader strategic purpose: establishing the semantic foundations, data interoperability, and governance structures needed to support future industrial AI applications across all OT domains with the aim of achieving operational excellence.
The ARC Open Digital Ecosystem Working Group
The ARC Open Digital Ecosystem Working Group evolved from the Open Asset Digital Twin effort established several years ago by ARC and a group of leading owner-operators. ODE’s mission is to accelerate industrial digital transformation by addressing the persistent challenge of fragmented information environments characterized by data silos, proprietary systems, expensive integrations, and poor interoperability endemic to the industrial world. The group brings together leading end users from a variety of industries to develop common frameworks and best practices that enable scalable digital innovation. ARC facilitates the dialogue, documents insights, and helps communicate a consistent, credible voice of the technology user to the broader ecosystem.
Separating Data from Applications
The ODE advocates an "open ecosystem" approach in which information is separated from the applications that consume it. Instead of relying on isolated solutions or proprietary platforms, industrial organizations can create interoperable digital foundations that support multiple use cases and technology providers. Participants repeatedly stressed that no single platform is expected to dominate future industrial digital environments. Rather, value will emerge through collaboration around common semantic models, open standards, and interoperable data architectures.
A central theme throughout the webinar was the importance of developing semantic layers and knowledge graphs that organize engineering, operational, maintenance, safety, and reality-capture information into reusable digital foundations. These foundations can then support new technologies such as conversational AI, software agents, digital twins, advanced analytics, and future automation initiatives. The Open Digital Ecosystem Working Group views HAZOP as an especially valuable use case because of the potential to reduce the huge amount of complexity associated with HAZOP analyses and because HAZOP is so widely applied across so many industries.
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