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Monthly Highlight for 05_01_11

May 2011 Highlight
Extending International Product Data Standard for Small and Medium Enterprise Use

NIST EL staff met with international standards developers at the BAE Systems Advanced Technology Center in Filton, UK to work on a new ISO product data standard for model-based engineering as part of the ongoing ISO 10303 standards development efforts. The ISO 10303, commonly known as the Standard for the Exchange of Product model data (STEP), focuses on product data representation to support Computer-Aided Design (CAD)/Computer-Aided Engineering (CAE) and Product Data Management (PDM) data exchange, system integration, visualization, and long-term preservation of product information. A developing STEP specification, ISO Working Draft 10303-242, Managed Model Based 3D Engineering (AP242), combines two widely implemented ISO 10303 standards, one that is primarily supported by the aerospace and defense industries and one that is used primarily in the automotive industry.  A third standard ISO 10303-239(AP239), Product Life Cycle Support (PLCS) has a focus on maintenance of product information throughout the product's life cycle.  Both AP242 and AP 239 standards represent Product Lifecycle Management information, and both include higher-level models that drive their implementations.

Several industry and government STEP stakeholders, including NIST, are working on the harmonization of these standards to ensure that they may be used in concert. Aligning the requirements and implementation forms of AP242 and AP239 will ensure that these standards can be used together to support the entire product lifecycle. The ISO 10303 standard is critical for small business participation in manufacturing. The standard allows small business to use low-end CAD systems that are in some cases one tenth the cost of high-end CAD systems used by large manufacturers. Using STEP, small manufacturers need only maintain a single design system rather than multiple systems when working with multiple original equipment manufacturers.

Contact: Allison Barnard Feeney, 301-975-3181
Program: Model-Based Enterprise
Category: Interaction

Created June 22, 2011, Updated September 21, 2016