Interest in STEP-NC Standard Growing

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Troy, New York, December 3, 1998

The STEP-NC group (ISO TC184/SC1/WG7) is working to define a standard that will allow Numerically Controlled (NC) machine tools to create parts directly from STEP product models. STEP-NC extends the STEP product models to include information for machine tool controllers. Japanese and European STEP-NC projects have been funded and recent teleconference calls in the United States have included multiple representatives from the Automotive, Aerospace and Defense sectors. Interest in the proposed new standard is particularly strong in Germany and Switzerland.

As a result of a meeting, held in the US in September 1998, pilot projects will begin in the US. They are likely to include controller testing at Lawrence Livermore Labs and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), database testing at STEP Tools, Inc., and end-user functionality testing at Boeing, General Motors and General Dynamics Land Systems.

A special interest group met for the first time at the ISO STEP meeting in Beijing, China in October 1998. The United States, the STEP special interest group and the Japanese project all want to integrate the STEP-NC models more closely with STEP. The US representatives are particularly keen to make the new stand as data driven as possible and to show that a data pipeline can be constructed to take AP-203 design data, annotate it with AP-224 manufacturing feature data, compute process plan dependencies, and output the result as an AP-213 file for the macro process plan with references to ISO 14649 files for the individual machine tool working steps.

More information regarding the relationship between STEP and STEP-NC can be found at: http://www.steptools.com/~hardwick/STEP-NC/index.htm. In addition, a home page for the STEP-NC project is available on the STEP Tools, Inc. home page. The home page contains a mapping of the STEP-NC EXPRESS model into the STEP integrated resources at: http://www.steptools.com/library/stepnc/.

The ISO Standard for the Exchange of Product Model Data (STEP) grew from the need to represent digital product information for design and manufacturing. STEP accelerates the flow of product information, including CAD geometry, within and between engineering activities. The ability to condense and manage all the data related to a part, a process, or any related function can produce significant improvements in productivity. Using STEP, information pertaining to initial design, revisions, bill of materials, production, performance, and so on, can be centrally stored and electronically shared through networks, from LANs to the Internet.

STEP Tools, Inc., founded in 1991, provides software tools based on ISO STEP. STEP Tools products leverage STEP technology to facilitate the sharing of engineering product information for worldwide design and manufacturing. These products provide the flexibility of EXPRESS information modeling language, integration with existing tools and database systems, cross-platform portability, and ease-of-use. STEP Tools is the leading source of software for the ISO STEP community with over 175 customer sites worldwide, including many Fortune 100 companies.

Or access the STEP Tools web site: http://www.steptools.com.