Who They Are & What They Create
Process Industry Practices (PIP) is a self-funded consortium of owner companies and engineering construction contractors in the process industry. It operates under the auspices of the Construction Industry Institute (CII) at The University of Texas at Austin.
PIP’s core mission is to harmonize internal company standards and best practices into a single, comprehensive library of voluntary, non-proprietary standards—referred to as Practices. These Practices are designed to minimize total cost of ownership, reduce plant operating and installation costs, and increase capital efficiency across industrial projects.
Focus and Disciplines
PIP Practices provide technical requirements, design guides, and specifications for the entire lifecycle of industrial facilities: design, engineering, procurement, construction, operation, and maintenance.
PIP standards cover 14 engineering disciplines, including:
- Piping (PNC/PNE Series): Specifications, guides, and descriptions for metallic and non-metallic piping systems.
- Civil, Structural, and Architectural (CSA): Practices for structural design criteria, blast-resistant building design, and fixed ladders.
- Process Control (PCC): Guidance for instrumentation and control systems, measurements, process analyzers, and industrial cybersecurity.
- Electrical (ELS): Standards for power equipment, grounding systems, and electrical specifications.
- Machinery, Insulation, Process Safety, Coatings, and Pipeline Systems.
Detailed History
The Process Industry Practices (PIP) Initiative was founded in 1993. It was created as a collaborative effort to address the massive inefficiencies and cost inflation resulting from each company in the process sector (Oil & Gas, Chemical, Petrochemical, etc.) maintaining its own unique set of engineering specifications.
By harmonizing the best ideas from dozens of individual company standards and making them available in a consensus-driven library, PIP helps industry members save significant time and money on design, procurement, and construction. The collaborative development of these practices ensures they are up-to-date and reliable, often filling gaps not covered by major global standards bodies like ISO or API.