Plant Lifecycle Data Standards in the Process Industry: Diagnosis and Resolution of Collective Action Failure

Rationale, aims and objectives: Several stakeholders had observed the slow adoption of product model data standards in the Process Industry. The collective action failure contradicts the expectations from public good games with increasing returns to scale. No earlier research had investigated the strength of this observation, nor the possible causes for the apparently irrational slow adoption. The purpose of this study was to determine the reality of the adoption failure and to propose diagnostic leads regarding the failure's cause-effect mechanisms. Methods: Stakeholder interviews were used to analyze the industry's in-need state regarding plant life cycle data standards. Factor categories and kinds of adoption-hurdles were summarized following a literature review on technology diffusion under network effects. Actor network theory was used to map the data standards adoption incentives and barriers in the process industry and to contrast standards adoption with the automotive industry. Meta-analysis techniques were used to interpret our findings and identify cause-effect mechanisms across the factors (diagnostic realm), and to articulate intervention-focused recommendations on them (therapeutic realm). Results: Using the lens of Actor Network Theory and the Multi-Level Perspective, standards adoption performance in two industries is compared. A problem mess description helped the stakeholders to better understand each others interests and limitations in developing or adopting product model standards. This descriptive result was utilized to formulate tactics recommendations for private and public sector actors. Conclusions: That product model standards adoption in the process industry is slower than in the automotive industry could be attributed to a range of factors and their impacts upon actor tactics. Our descriptive results and their interpretation w.r.t. the findings of other studies offer step-stones, both for practitioners and researchers in the interoperability standards arena.