Dr. Hardwick Speaks at International Workshop for Aerospace Product Data Exchange
Troy, New York - March 19, 2003 - STEP Tools, Inc. , announced today it will participate in Aerospace PDE 2003, the fifth annual International Workshop for Aerospace Product Data Exchange, being held on April 7-10, 2003, in Gaithersburg, MD. The event is being hosted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Space Agency (ESA) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Aerospace engineers and IT professionals will gather at NIST headquarters to join a forum for the discussion of methods and technology for reliable exchange and long term archival of aerospace product data. Dr. Martin Hardwick, president and CEO of STEP Tools, will present a paper on "Model Driven Intelligent Control of Manufacturing" from 10:55am to 11:40am on Monday, April 7, 2003.
Dr. Hardwick is the international team leader of the STEP Manufacturing group. His paper will cover the progress of the international draft standard STEP-NC and focus on the technology's current and future benefits to the aerospace industry. Over the past three years, STEP Tools has spearheaded the development of STEP-NC effort in North America, and is a highly visible participant in the global STEP community of over 200 independent product data specialists.
Dr. Hardwick will present an overall theme of product data integration, based on a full fidelity STEP-NC model used as direct input to a CNC machine tool. The comprehensive STEP-NC model can provide the comprehensive data needed for the long term archival needs of the aerospace industry. The forthcoming international standard will usher in a new era of manufacturing automation in terms of productivity, safety, reliability, and CNC machine tool usability and interoperability.