ISO STEP Community Assembles in Poitiers, France for its Concluding 2003 Meeting;
STEP Tools, Inc. Joins 200 Independent Product Data Specialists to
Promote and Progress STEP and STEP-NC International Standards
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Contact: Belinda Jones, 860-767-9506
HiTech Marketing LLC
belinda.jones@hitechmarketing.com
Troy, New York - Sep 29, 2003 -
STEP Tools, Inc.
announced today it will attend the last 2003 gathering of the worldwide ISO
STEP community. This international team of more than 200 data structure
experts meet three times per year to maintain and advance STEP (Standard for
Product Data Exchange) and STEP-NC standards. The meeting will be held in
Poitiers, France on October 26 - 31, 2003. STEP Tools spearheads the
development of STEP-NC effort in North America, and has been a highly visible
participant in the global STEP community for over fifteen years. Dr. Martin
Hardwick, president and CEO of STEP Tools, is the international team leader of
the STEP Manufacturing group. Dr. David Loffredo, STEP Tools' Vice President
of Product Development, is the deputy leader of the working group responsible
for STEP Implementation Methods.
Dr. Hardwick will convene with the STEP Manufacturing team and
deliberate top implementation issues for STEP-NC, the emerging new
standard for product design and manufacturing data. The team will
further discuss and define Conformance Classes for STEP-NC, and move
forward to conclude open issues that will generate a vote to establish
STEP-NC as an official Draft International Standard.
To better integrate the manufacturing process and allow more flexible use of
CNC machine tools, STEP Tools has spent the past three years developing a
STEP-NC software environment for an intelligent manufacturing system that
shares data between product design, process planning and machine tool
controllers. By infusing a high level of "intelligence" in machine tool
controllers, much of the manufacturing process can be automated and processed
within the same database through the use of a full fidelity STEP-NC model. The
company has established a STEP-NC Implementer's Program and a line of software
implementation products for early adopters of STEP-NC technology.
STEP-NC is anticipated to eliminate the most troublesome bottlenecks to
manufacturing productivity - cumbersome post processors, antiquated G & M
codes, data redundancies, multiple CAD files, and more. The international
standard is expected to usher in a new era of manufacturing automation in
terms of productivity, safety, reliability, and CNC machine tool usability and
interoperability.
About STEP and STEP-NC Standards
STEP (STandard for Exchange of Product model data) is a comprehensive ISO
standard for CAD design data. STEP-NC, the manufacturing extension of this
standard, annotates the design information with manufacturing data. STEP
became a full ISO standard in 1994, and since then, all of the leading CAD
software vendors have implemented STEP data translation. It is estimated that
more than one and a half million CAD stations now contain STEP data
translators. STEP-NC is on its way to becoming a Draft International Standard
in 2004.
About STEP Tools, Inc.
STEP Tools, Inc. is a leading international supplier of professional
STEP software toolsets (based on ISO standards) for application
software developers, design firms and manufacturing companies in
diverse industries. The STEP Tools product line is used by the world's
foremost firms to leverage STEP and STEP-NC technology to facilitate
the sharing of engineering product information. Over one million end
users utilize product data applications built with ST-Developer, the
company's flagship product. The company offers a suite of software
solutions in several languages that integrate with existing tools and
database systems, and also provide cross-platform compatibility and
ease-of-use for streamlined development. The emerging STEP-NC
technology is yielding process improvements including a 35% reduction
in path planning time, a 75% reduction in paper drawings generated for
the shop-floor, and a 50% improvement in machining time for small to
mid-sized job lots. For late-breaking information, contact STEP
Tools, Inc. by calling (518) 687-2848, email: info@steptools.com or visit www.steptools.com.
|
